W23 Global Research
Investment Thesis
W23 Global is a corporate venture capital fund jointly backed by five of the world's leading grocery retailers: Ahold Delhaize (US, Europe, Indonesia), Tesco (UK, Ireland, Europe), the Woolworths Group (Australia, New Zealand), Empire Company/Sobeys (Canada), and the Shoprite Group (Africa). Launched in April 2024, the fund grew out of W23 Australia, a corporate venture vehicle Ingrid Maes founded for Woolworths Group in 2019. The thesis is that grocery retail is being reshaped by technology and sustainability pressure, and that a fund with five global retail networks behind it can give founders "accelerated pathways to scale across the world's major markets" while moving at start-up speed. The fund's own language emphasizes "global capital, global scale, start-up speed" as its core value proposition to founders: portfolio companies get access to pilot and commercial relationships across the backers' combined footprint of roughly 18,800 stores and over a million employees across nine-plus countries.
Sector Focus
W23 invests across the technology and sustainability stack that touches grocery and retail operations: retail media and advertising infrastructure (Topsort), CPG manufacturing and supply chain platforms (Keychain), product data and shopper intelligence (Harmonya), AI-powered workplace safety and loss prevention (Protex AI, Auror), AI agent commerce and enterprise AI infrastructure (Skyfire, Cresta), energy infrastructure for AI data centers and battery storage (Verse, Moment Energy), plant-based food and alternative proteins (Spero Foods, Harvest B, Marley Spoon), sustainable packaging and circular materials (Great Wrap, Samsara Eco), enterprise compliance AI (Haast), and food-security/supply-risk intelligence (Helios AI). The common thread is technology that a large grocery retailer could plausibly deploy, pilot, or benefit from operationally, plus a secondary sustainability/circular-economy lens.
Stage Focus
W23 invests from seed through growth stage. Early deals (Harvest B, Samsara Eco) were seed-stage checks alongside specialist deep-tech and impact investors. More recent deals span Series A (Topsort), Series B (Keychain, Moment Energy, Verse) and Series C (Auror), and the fund has also written standalone strategic checks into later-stage private companies (Helios AI's $3M raise, Cresta joining the portfolio). Third-party trackers describe W23's typical entry point as Seed through growth, consistent with the observed spread of deals.
Check Size
Exact check sizes are not disclosed. Observed rounds where W23 participated range from a ~$3.5-4.5M seed round (Harvest B, one of several investors) up to $40-82M rounds where W23 was one of multiple participants (Moment Energy, Auror). Third-party investor-database estimates put typical checks in the $500K-$1M range for early rounds, though the fund's participation in larger growth rounds suggests it can flex meaningfully above that for follow-on or strategic positions (e.g., a $3M solo strategic check into Helios AI).
Lead Tendency
Mixed. W23 (via its Harvest B seed round and as one of the named lead investors alongside Axon Enterprise and Reinventure in Auror's Series C) has led or co-led some rounds, while in others (Moment Energy's Series B led by Evok Innovations, Verse's Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners) it participates alongside a syndicate without leading.
Recent Activity
The fund has been steadily active through 2025 and into 2026: investments in Harmonya (Jul 2025), Keychain (Nov 2025), Topsort (Nov 2025), Cresta (~May 2026), Moment Energy (~May 2026), Verse (Jun 2026), Skyfire (~Jun 2026), and Helios AI (Sep 2026). Brendon Blacker joined as Head of Investments in November 2025, signaling continued build-out of the investment team. The cadence suggests a fund in active deployment mode roughly two years into its life as a combined global vehicle.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable companies include Auror (retail crime/loss-prevention platform, backed alongside Axon Enterprise), Topsort (AI-powered retail media infrastructure), Keychain (AI-powered CPG manufacturing platform used by major US retailers), Harmonya (AI product-data and shopper-insight platform for CPG/retail), Moment Energy and Verse (energy infrastructure), Skyfire and Cresta (AI infrastructure), and legacy W23 Australia investments including Samsara Eco (enzymatic plastic recycling), Great Wrap (compostable packaging), Harvest B (plant-based meat ingredients), and Marketplacer. Two portfolio companies have been acquired: Marley Spoon (2024) and Eucalyptus (acquired by Hims, Feb 2026).
Team
- Ingrid Maes, Founder, CEO & Chief Investment Officer: Founded the original W23 Australia fund for Woolworths Group in 2019 and now leads the combined global fund; 25+ years in retail, data, loyalty and digital.
- Brendon Blacker, Head of Investments: Joined November 2025 with 20+ years of global VC investing experience across early and growth stages.
- Candice Heggelund, Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel & Company Secretary: Leads legal, governance and compliance for the fund.
- Anthony Harris, Head of Finance & Compliance: Leads finance and regulatory compliance.
- Alex Browne, Investor: Joined the investment team in January 2026, based in Sydney.
Decision Process
The fund's investment committee includes the CEOs of its five founding retailers, giving it an investment-committee-style governance model rather than a solo-GP or small-partnership structure. This is a distinguishing feature versus a typical institutional VC: strategic alignment with five large retail groups is built into the decision process itself.
Founder Preferences
W23 favors founders building technology or sustainable-materials businesses with a credible path to deployment inside large grocery retail operations, or businesses (like Skyfire, Cresta, Verse) building foundational AI/energy infrastructure that the backers' broader technology stack can benefit from even without a direct retail-floor use case.
Geographic Focus
Global, mapped to the backers' footprints: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Africa (via Shoprite in South Africa). Observed deals cluster in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, with the operating team based primarily in Sydney and the corporate entity reported as domiciled in the UK.