The Munich startup nearBees receives financing: The Social Venture Capital Fund, also based in Munich BonVenture invests a high six-figure sum. With an online marketplace for local honey and innovative shipping packaging, nearBees has radically simplified honey marketing for beekeepers.
Since its founding in 2015, the social enterprise nearBees has developed into a central point of contact for the purchase and sale of local honey throughout Germany: over 1,500 beekeepers now use the platform to market their honey surplus. The startup has already been multiple awards.
Save bees — with every spoonful of “honey from next door”
At the beginning of 2017, the concept “Honey from Next Door” with a range of regional honey varieties was also extended to Bavarian retailThis step was a welcome innovation for fans of local honey. After all, imported honey otherwise dominates supermarket shelves. NearBees also offers corporate clients the opportunity to sustainably support more bees locally through bee sponsorships.
With the support of BonVenture, these business areas are to be further expanded.
“We are very pleased to have found a partner in BonVenture who will work with us to further advance the issues of regionality and the preservation of beekeeping,”
says Michael Gelhaus, founder and managing director of nearBees.
BonVenture is personally committed to preserving bees
In BonVenture, nearBees has not only found a local partner, but also a like-minded person. After all, Dr. Erwin Stahl, the fund's managing director, is himself a passionate beekeeper. Therefore, the preservation of bees is close to Dr. Stahl's heart:
“The enormous drop in honey prices is one of the reasons why beekeepers are keeping fewer and fewer bees — with devastating consequences for agriculture and biodiversity.
nearBees addresses this issue and, with fair prices and convenient marketing opportunities, creates incentives to keep more bees in the long term."
The Social Venture Capital Fund was founded in 2003 to promote the development and dissemination of innovative approaches in the social and ecological fields. Raising greater appreciation for honey, beekeepers, and bees, and thereby achieving greater biodiversity, fits in with the goals of the social venture capitalist.
