Founded in 2012 by co-founders, Dan White, Michael Nedell and Meg Randall, Localvore, Inc. began as a mission driven business supporting Vermont’s local food and consumer products businesses through social media marketing campaigns. In its early years, the company offered a suite of digital services that allowed local businesses to connect with socially conscious consumers in their community and measure the impact of their investment. But in order to scale the business to support more local markets, they realized the need to invest in technology and create an online platform that not only matches localvore consumers with restaurants serving local food in their communities, but links the local farms that sell to these same restaurants as well.

Localvore’s new online platform and app, launched in October 2017, allows food merchants to advertise their own deals, specials, and events for a monthly subscription fee. Additionally, Localvore consumers are able to find places to dine based on their culinary preferences.

The Flex Fund has been watching Localvore’s growth over the last four years. In that time, the company grew in Vermont, expanded their subscription list and customer base, and moved into the Portland, Maine, and Boston markets. They have a solid management team with domain expertise in social media marketing and have invested in a user friendly technology infrastructure that is scalable to handle millions of users and interactions a day. The Flex Fund initially invested $250,000 in royalty financing for growth, and then provided an additional $150,000 to support building the technology platform that help them launch markets beyond Vermont and Maine, and which can drive business to Vermont branded companies.