Founder of Cartel Group and Michelin chef, Pertti Kallioinen, has a long background working in restaurants and developing new restaurant concepts. Understanding the complexity of bringing new restaurant concepts to the market made him think about the industry from a new perspective; instead of launching new restaurants, how about using the existing ones’ spare capacity to launch new food concepts.

As its first concept, Cartel Group decided to bring the pizza game to a new level with a high-quality pizza concept focused around great ingredients and a catchy brand – Pizza Cartel. Pizza is the largest restaurant category in Europe which gives Pizza Cartel a huge base of potential partners with which to roll out their first concept.

The team’s passion for good food and supporting small business owners is at the core of their business. This can be seen by the large number of restaurant owners who want to improve the performance of their business by launching a proven concept such as Pizza Cartel.

In addition to Finland, Cartel Group is in the process of launching the Pizza Cartel concept in Sweden and is eyeing further markets. The team will also roll out further virtual restaurant concepts during the year.

Novelty and capital efficiency attracted investors

“We want to do for restaurant owners what Uber has done for car owners and what Airbnb has done for apartment owners: Allow them to maximize their use of the premises, equipment, and staff they’ve already invested in and improve their business.”, says Kallioinen.

“With this funding, we can complete the roll-out in Finland by making sure that Cartel’s pizzas are available to all Finnish consumers, and open rapidly to the Swedish market. I have been along the ride from the very beginning and feel great about the successful funding round and the expertise that came with it.”, says Arto Martonen, former Pizza Cartel board member, and first investor.

“We were initially attracted to Cartel Group by the novelty and capital efficiency of the company’s virtual restaurant concept. But the main reason for joining the funding round was the team that Pertti has assembled, their passion for the business, and their proven ability to grow the business at such a fast pace.”, tells Henry Nilert, FiBAN syndicate lead and current board member at Cartel Group.

More information

Pertti Kallioinen, Founder, Pizza Cartel
pertti@pizzacartel.fi

Antti Viitanen, Deal Flow Manager, FiBAN
antti@fiban.org