Steph Curry’s VC firm, Penny Jar Capital, has led a $3.8 million seed funding round for Burnt, an AI startup aiming to revolutionize food supply chains. The round also saw participation from Scribble Ventures, Formation VC, and angel investors, including Dan Scheinman. Burnt, a Y Combinator startup, is developing an AI-powered operating system to streamline and automate repetitive operational tasks that currently hinder the global food supply chain.
The company’s platform works alongside existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to enhance their efficiency and performance. The food supply chain faces challenges due to outdated legacy systems that rely heavily on manual inputs, contributing to inefficiencies. Sales reps at food distributors receive orders via various channels, such as email, phone calls, WhatsApp, voicemails, texts, and even faxes.
Each order then has to be manually entered into the system, a time-consuming process that takes away from higher-value work. Burnt addresses this issue with its AI agent, Ozai, which captures orders from various sources and automatically inputs the data into existing ERP systems with remarkable speed and accuracy. Processing a single sales order manually can take ten minutes, but with Burnt’s technology, it is reduced to mere seconds.
Burnt’s AI agent transforms supply chains
Since its launch in January, Burnt has processed over $10 million worth of orders each month for its initial client base, which includes leading food distributors in sectors such as meat, seafood, and specialty foods. The company plans to expand its suite of agents, introducing additional tools for departments including procurement, distribution, accounting, finance, and compliance.
Burnt’s founders bring generational expertise as supply chain entrepreneurs. CEO Joseph Jacob is a fourth-generation entrepreneur in the food supply chain, starting his career in a shrimp factory and later managing global procurement for one of America’s largest shrimp importers. CPO Rhea Karimpanal has deep roots in India’s spice trade and experience in product development, while CTO Chandru Shanmugasundaram has a background in developing ERP systems.
“The food supply chain runs on relationships, hustle, and a thousand moving parts—but behind every order is a team buried in emails, messages, voicemails, and spreadsheets, manually trying to keep everything on track,” said Jacob. “With Burnt, we are creating supply chain superintelligence to eliminate the repetitive, invisible work and give time back to the people keeping the food industry moving.”
Bryant Barr, Founding Partner at Penny Jar Capital, stated, “JJ brings unmatched expertise to the food industry. He has lived every layer of it—from the factory floor to managing hundreds of millions in procurement—and that kind of knowledge can’t be picked up quickly by others.
That depth, combined with his relentless drive and refusal to accept the status quo, is why we bet on JJ and his team—and why we believe they’ll win.”
Burnt’s innovative approach to tackling inefficiencies in the food supply chain has attracted significant attention and investment. With the backing of Steph Curry’s VC firm and a team of experienced founders, the company is well-positioned to make a significant impact in the industry.
