Burnt has raised $3.8 million in seed funding to develop an innovative AI-powered operating system. The funding round was led by Penny Jar Capital, with significant contributions from Scribble Ventures, Formation VC, and a roster of influential angel investors. This group includes Dan Scheinman, alongside various leaders from the food industry and prominent figures in the field of artificial intelligence.
The company’s new system is designed to streamline and automate the repetitive operational tasks that currently hinder the global food supply chain. Burnt’s unique agentic platform aims to automate the often monotonous workflows that are typically entrenched within existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Instead of replacing these legacy systems, Burnt’s approach is to work in conjunction with them, accelerating their efficiency and improving their overall performance.
Currently, Burnt is already making a substantial impact, processing over $10 million worth of orders each month for its initial client base. This includes leading food distributors specializing in diverse sectors such as meat, seafood, and specialty foods, with La Tua Pasta being one notable example.
The primary challenges within the food supply chain stem from outdated legacy systems. These systems were initially designed to securely store data in isolated silos, which makes them ill-equipped to intelligently adapt to the highly dynamic, complex, and interconnected nature of the modern food industry. Furthermore, these systems heavily rely on manual inputs, contributing to inefficiencies. Burnt is tackling this head-on, beginning with an operational agent that can capture orders from a multitude of sources. Whether orders arrive via email, voicemail, or spreadsheet, Burnt’s system automatically inputs this data into existing ERP systems with remarkable speed and accuracy.
For instance, a single sales order can take approximately ten minutes to process. When hundreds of orders arrive every minute, this can mean an entire workday is consumed just by processing orders. With Burnt’s technology, the time required to process each order is reduced to mere seconds, effectively giving businesses back an entire workday, allowing their teams to reallocate that valuable time to focusing on their customers. Looking ahead, Burnt has ambitious plans to expand its suite of agents, introducing additional tools for various teams across different departments, including procurement, distribution, accounting, finance, and compliance.
The founders of Burnt are graduates of Y Combinator’s S25 batch, bringing generational expertise as supply chain entrepreneurs. Their extensive knowledge encompasses every critical stage of the food supply chain, from the farm to the consumer’s table. JJ (Joseph Jacob), the Co-Founder and CEO, is a fourth-generation entrepreneur in the food supply chain. His career began in a shrimp factory, eventually leading him to manage global procurement for one of the largest shrimp importers in America. He also contributed to Rekki, a Benchmark-backed B2B marketplace connecting restaurants and suppliers, operating at the intersection of traditional food supply chain practices and venture-backed technological innovation. Rhea Karimpanal, the Co-Founder and CPO, hails from a third-generation entrepreneurial background in the food supply chain, with deep roots in India’s spice trade. Her experience includes developing products and services for established industries, such as hospitality and travel, and working with venture-backed companies, including Fora Travel. Chandru Shanmugasundaram, the Co-Founder and CTO, is also a third-generation industry entrepreneur. He began his technology journey by developing an in-house ERP system for his father’s printing press company, later holding key engineering positions at some of India’s top unicorn tech companies.
KEY QUOTES:
“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. I’ve experienced this first-hand, from working the shrimp factory floor to managing global procurement, and when I couldn’t find a solution, I began building one. 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.”
Joseph (“JJ”) Jacob, Co-founder and CEO, Burnt
“After using other softwares that start-ups built, I saw why Burnt is different—they actually get the weird, wacky nuances of our world. They were relentless in making my team happy, and that’s why I backed them in their seed round. Now I can’t even imagine what life was like before Burnt.”
Nicholas Hanson, Managing Director, La Tua Pasta
“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. It comes only from years of firsthand exposure to the way this industry truly operates. 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.”
Bryant Barr, Founding Partner, Penny Jar Capital
“What impresses me most about the Burnt team is they are not just outsiders looking to disrupt a historic industry with radical technology. Instead, they’ve lived this life and know all the nuances in workflows and where the real opportunity is to help. That insider experience is exactly the kind of founder-market fit we look for.”
Dan Scheinman, angel investor
“Many founders are attacking obvious industries with agentic capabilities, but there are others that don’t get the same limelight where the opportunity set is equally massive. Food distribution is a $300 billion industry running on legacy systems that were installed some 25 years ago. It effectively skipped the SaaS generation. Any modern piece of software that breaks through will be in large part to a team’s customer sensibilities. JJ spent his entire life in this industry and it shows in the way the Burnt team architected and brought the product to market. We are seeing really encouraging early signs and think Burnt can one day be the central nervous system of the food distribution.”
Solly Garber, Formation
“While the food supply chain relies on technology, there are still so many headaches and low efficiency workflows that result in massive opportunity costs. Given their deep industry knowledge, the Burnt founders are the right team to build an AI solution that gives time back to the people who keep the food industry moving.”
Elizabeth Weil, Founder & GP at Scribble Ventures
