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Le Fourgon: Charles Christory shares how to get funded in 2025

Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 

In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.

Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners; Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.

Episode 21: Le Fourgon: Charles Christory shares how to get funded in 2025

In this episode, I spoke with Charles Christory, Co-Founder of Le Fourgon, about the rollercoaster journey of raising capital for a mission-driven company tackling plastic waste. When a last-minute investor dropout forced them to rethink their €15M Series A, they pivoted, secured funding from existing investors, and turned to crowdfunding—raising €2.5M from over 1,500 supporters. We dive into how to handle investor crises, the secrets to running a successful crowdfunding campaign, and the discipline needed to balance fundraising with execution. If you're a founder looking to navigate high-stakes fundraising while keeping your business thriving, this one’s for you.

Key Facts Le Fourgon:

• Goal: To reduce waste in daily consumption by offering doorstep delivery of groceries, beverages, and household and hygiene products in reusable packaging.
• Recently raised €8.2 million.

Alex’s Top Findings:

1. Resilience in Fundraising: Handling Last-Minute Investor Dropouts. When an investor dropped out at the last minute from Le Fourgon’s Series A, the team had to quickly adjust their strategy, securing $10M instead of $15M and extending the round later. They leaned on their existing lead investor’s confidence in the company. "Nothing was signed, but there was like a gentleman agreement on that point to say, 'Okay, we all know that we would have preferred not to face that situation, but we are really confident in the company, in the team to meet the figure in a year." So that's the reason why on that 8. 2 million, we had around 3. 5 million on our current investor," Charles revealed.
2. Crowdfunding as a Strategic Fundraising Tool. Le Fourgon raised €2.5M from over 1,500 investors through a crowdfunding campaign. The decision was motivated by customer demand, as many loyal users wanted to invest in the company. "So many people are saying, 'We know that you are doing good, and we would like to be more around you and supporting you more, not just to be a client but also maybe to be an investor." So we had that in mind a year ago, and then we come back to that platform later that where we were speaking with, and we had that campaign, and they said, 'Okay, let's do it.'”
3. Crisis Management: Communicating an Investor Dropout to Stakeholders. When a key investor backed out due to internal policy restrictions on alcohol-related businesses, Charles quickly devised a recovery plan, reassured existing investors, and secured alternative funding. "We told investors, ‘It's not linked to Le Fourgon—we are all good. This is our plan.’ Smart people told us in the same call, ‘Okay, we are fine.’" Charles shared.