Smarter Ventures has invested in Passionfruit, an AI startup helping food companies tackle ESG, quality, and compliance challenges in a smarter way. Smarter Ventures is investing an initial €250,000 in Passionfruit, with the ambition to support the company in its next phase of growth as well.With this funding, the Venture Grower program, and the entrepreneurial experience of the Smarter Ventures founders, we’re supporting the team of Maikel Fontein and Lars Kuijpers as they scale.“We’ve spoken to many startups over the past year,” says Kristian de Lange.
“Passionfruit stood out.Maikel and Lars are persistent, adaptable, and have built a powerful solution to a business-critical problem.”
Food companies face 30% more complex questionnaires each year, covering sustainability, quality, and safety. Passionfruit helps them respond faster, more consistently, and automatically — right within Word, Excel, or whichever system their customers use, supported by domain-specific AI. This allows companies to save up to 75% of their time, maintain control over their data, and increase both transparency and speed toward customers and auditors.
“Many companies in the food sector are struggling with increasing demands from customers around food safety, ESG, and compliance,” says Maikel Fontein. “We help them manage this more efficiently and intelligently — without needing to hire more people.”
Passionfruit is currently working with several Dutch and international customers, including FrieslandCampina, Volcafe, and FunnyFoods Factory.
“That last client, FunnyFoods Factory, gave us the biggest compliment just last week,” says Maikel.
“Since we started using Passionfruit, four of our customers have asked what changed in our process. They notice the difference: we communicate more professionally and faster than ever before. Internally, we now spend 75% less time per compliance questionnaire,” says Yvette Thewissen, QA lead, Funny Foods Factory
Passionfruit’s mission aligns perfectly with Smarter Ventures’ belief that applied AI plays a key role in solving complex challenges — particularly in the food sector.
“This partnership allows us to strengthen our team and accelerate product development,” says Lars Kuijpers. “That way, we can grow faster and better.”
Smarter Ventures represents a new wave in venture capital. No traditional structures, but hands-on investing in entrepreneurs who use technology to solve real-world problems. They focus on early-growth software companies, particularly those working with AI and Web3 in business-critical and high-impact areas.In addition to growth capital, Smarter Ventures offers the Venture Grower program — structured support from experienced entrepreneurs who have walked the startup path themselves. Through this program, they help founders build toward sustainable growth, step by step.
