Rooser

High-Level Overview

Rooser was a technology company founded in 2019 and headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, that built a cloud-based B2B marketplace platform to modernize seafood trading.[1][2][3] It served seafood processors, suppliers, and wholesale buyers across Europe, primarily in France (95% of sales), by enabling real-time stock listing, price negotiation, logistics coordination, payments, and claims management in a single system.[1][2] The platform addressed inefficiencies in a fragmented, high-waste industry where up to 35% of seafood never reaches consumers, reducing friction through integrated workflows that replaced email, spreadsheets, and WhatsApp with secure, auditable processes supporting multiple languages and currencies.[1][2] Rooser raised $23 million in funding, including from Google and Index Ventures, employed 27 people, and generated around $5.7 million in revenue before entering liquidation.[1][3]

Origin Story

Rooser was founded in 2019 by seafood industry veterans addressing pain points they experienced firsthand in the supply chain.[1][2] CEO Joel Watt, a serial seafood entrepreneur, recognized the "chaos" in trading while running a factory and hacked together initial software that other processors wanted to adopt.[2] He teamed with Chief Commercial Officer Nicolas Desormeaux (18 years managing multi-million euro seafood budgets), Chief Operating Officer Erez Mathan (former COO/CRO at GoCardless, scaling it to 700 employees and $100M revenue), and Chief Technology Officer Thomas Quiroga (founder of digital agency beyondr.io).[2] Early traction came from building trust in a network across 13+ European countries, with a major expansion funded by capital injection and $23M from investors like Google and Index Ventures.[2][3] The company focused on primary processors, adding features like quality controls and supply chain financing before its liquidation.[1][2]

Core Differentiators

• Integrated Workflow: Combined stock management, real-time marketplace, secure messaging for negotiations, logistics tracking, and embedded payments into one platform, eliminating fragmented tools and enabling cross-border trade in multiple languages/currencies.[1][2]
• Transparency and Efficiency: Provided data-led price discovery and auditable processes in an opaque sector, reducing waste (up to 35%) and improving margins for buyers/sellers.[1][2]
• Seafood-Specific Focus: Built by industry experts for processors and wholesalers, with features like personalized matching ("who-has-what" or "who-wants-what"), quality controls, and future data insights/models.[1][2]
• Network and Scale: Onboarded users across Europe with strong France footprint; raised $23M to fuel growth, achieving $5.7M revenue and 27 employees.[1][3]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Rooser rode the wave of digital transformation in supply chains, targeting the €140B+ European seafood market (part of a $253B global industry in 2021) fragmented across 140,000 businesses and 35,000 products.[1][3] Timing aligned with rising demands for traceability, waste reduction, and efficiency amid sustainability pressures and post-pandemic supply disruptions, where traditional methods fueled high losses.[1][2] It influenced the ecosystem by pioneering B2B marketplaces for perishables, inspiring data-driven tools in food/agritech, though its liquidation highlights challenges like sector resistance or execution hurdles in international expansion.[1]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Rooser's ambitious platform showed promise in taming seafood trading chaos but ended in liquidation, underscoring risks in niche B2B marketplaces.[1] What's next involves asset sales via Hilco Valuation Services, potentially transferring its tech, brand, or user network to acquirers.[1] Trends like AI-driven supply chain optimization and ESG-focused foodtech will shape similar ventures, evolving influence toward consolidated platforms that achieve Rooser's vision of less waste and better margins—perhaps revived by new owners in a maturing agritech landscape.[1][2][3] This ties back to its core mission: modernizing a "giant machine" of an industry through tech.