Keychain Lines Up New Capital With Powerhouse Investors
Manufacturing matchmaker Keychain is garnering the adoration of a wide range of investors.
Today, the B2B tech company announced it has raised an additional $15 million in a funding round led by early-stage tech investor BoxGroup. The round also included investment from General Mills, Schreiber Foods and existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and SV Angel.
The new funding brings the company’s total to $33 million in about a year since its launch and comes only a month after it secured a $2.5 million investment from The Hershey Company.
With the added capital in recent months, Keychain is looking to expand out from its roots in U.S. food and beverage and offer its model in additional categories like personal care, pet care, beauty, household items or supplements. The company is also planning to bring its service model and technology to the global manufacturing ecosystem.
Launched in February by former Angi executives Oisin Hanrahan and Umang Dua (the team who also co-founded home service platform Handy), Keychain uses AI technology to connect CPG manufacturers with brands and retailers looking to build new products. Keychain envisions itself as “selling picks and shovels” in an effort to create more flexibility in the supply chain and get products to market faster, Hanrahan said.
“When we first got involved in Keychain, the enormous opportunity to help organize and support domestic manufacturing was obvious,” said David Tisch, managing partner at BoxGroup, in a press release. “What we’ve come to appreciate in the last few months is the incredibly important role Keychain will play in shaping global CPG trade, and the import and export of food, materials, and packaging. From sovereign funds, to commodity exchanges, to certification agencies, they all have a clear, strategic reason to want a relationship with Keychain.”
That is also evidenced by the support it has garnered thus far, including from Hershey’s, General Mills and family-owned food company Rich Products. General Mills, which highlighted its use of AI to drive cost savings within its manufacturing during a recent earnings call, said that utilizing “advantaged digital infrastructure” to unlock additional efficiencies will be a top priority in 2025.
“We’re constantly looking for new ways to improve supply chain workflows, and it’s incredibly rare that our team finds a product that they are so universally positive about using. Keychain is going to change how CPG works,” said General Mills chief supply chain officer Paul Gallagher in a statement.
Keychain claims it has already enabled over 20,000 brands and retailers to search for manufacturers on its AI-powered platform and said it expects to help facilitate over $500 million in projected volume per month through the platform.
