The story of Choco is a masterclass on how to move fast and break things – even when your own business looks broken. Founded in 2018 by Daniel Khachab and Julian Hammer, the Berlin-based startup runs an AI-powered platform that transforms the way food businesses operate. It automates and streamlines the ordering process, which drastically reduces waste in an industry that contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and the startup made a big impression, fast. It raised over $328 million to become the first unicorn in the food distribution tech sector. 

Choco also had a rollercoaster journey to get there. In this episode of the Further, Faster Podcast, Daniel joins Antler Partner Cristoph Klink to share how he navigated the business through not one, but two “near-death” experiences. The first was when Covid hit in 2020. Daniel describes flying back from New York to Berlin before the lockdown hit, checking the Choco transaction volume on departure. “When I landed seven hours later in Berlin we lost 98% of the business,” he says.  

Daniel had to decide whether to take the company into hibernation and reduce costs with a view to rebuild down the line. He took a different approach. “One of our core values is always to play offense,” he says. “And so the question was, okay, what is the offensive move?” He tells Christoph how Choco sought out the opportunity in the crisis; they created an online grocery store to help food distributors offload stock they could no longer sell to restaurants. “We launched this in 17 countries in three weeks,” says Daniel. “It went viral. I think on the third day we've been doing over a million in revenue.”

The other major challenge the company had to adapt to was the ascent of AI. When consumer-grade Chat GPT dropped in 2022/2023, Daniel’s first thought was: “Oh my god our technology mode is gone. This thing is going to learn how to code in no time and everyone can copy us and everyone can build any kind of SaaS.” Daniel “harassed” the team at OpenAI to get API access as early as possible. “At this point I thought ‘okay there's two options: either someone learns really quick about AI and disrupts us…or we learn very quick about AI and disrupt ourselves.’”

To learn more about how Choco overhauled its product for the AI age, as well as valuable insights into sustainability, the future of tech, and the role of SaaS in the future, listen to the full episode here.