Pepper
“Can a vertical SaaS platform become the operating and financial system for the ~25,000 independent food distributors underserved by Sysco and US Foods?”
Founded2019
HQNew York, New York, United States
FoundersBowie Cheung, Chetan Narain, Ivana Tesanovic
Total raised$96M
Latest roundSeries C, $50M
IndustryVertical SaaS / Food Distribution
The story
Founded 2019 as an ordering platform for independent food distributors competing against Sysco/US Foods. Expanded from pure ordering into a full operating stack (Storefront, Sales Hub, Order Agent, Marketing Hub) and layered embedded finance via Finance Hub — turning the platform into the AR/collections system for distributors. Payment processing runs through Adyen; the strategy is classic vertical-SaaS-plus-payments, with Finance Hub monetizing the transaction rail on top of the software subscription.
Product timeline
2019
Founded by ex-Uber Eats team to digitize ordering for independent food distributors· launch
2021
Raised $16M to expand ordering platform for food distributors· funding
2024
Raised $30M Series B led by ICONIQ Growth; 200+ distributor customers· funding
2024
Launched Finance Hub - embedded payments, ACH/card acceptance, autopay, payment plans· banking
2026
Expanded AI/order automation product (Order Agent) and pushed AI-first platform positioning· pivot
The stack
5 layers disclosed in Pepper’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Money movement
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Open banking
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
4 more providers across 4 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.