The food industry doesn’t move fast. It moves heavy. Generationally heavy. ERP systems older than most interns still prop up a $300B distribution sector inside a $9T global supply chain. That kind of inefficiency doesn’t just leave money on the table, it leaves it rotting in the back of the freezer. Enter Burnt, a SF startup out of YC’s S25 batch, now holding $3.8M in fresh seed funding led by Penny Jar Capital, the VC firm backed by Stephen Curry, with Scribble Ventures, Formation VC, and angel heavyweight Dan Scheinman adding heat to the pan.
This isn’t a tourist play. Burnt’s founders didn’t stumble into food distribution with a whiteboard and a hoodie. Joseph “JJ” Jacob, Co-founder & CEO, is 4th-gen supply chain, his great-grandfather shipped shrimp from India to the U.S. in the 1930s. JJ himself has been everywhere from shrimp factory floors to global procurement roles moving hundreds of M in product. Co-founder & Chief Product Officer Rhea Karimpanal comes from a family rooted in the spice trade, pairing industry DNA with product chops sharpened in VC-backed companies. Co-founder & CTO Chandru Shanmugasundaram built his 1st ERP system for his father’s printing press before shipping code at India’s top unicorns. This is insider knowledge layered over lived experience, not theory wrapped in pitch decks.
The product reflects that authenticity. Burnt isn’t bulldozing legacy ERPs. It’s layering AI agents on top, automating workflows nobody wants while leaving infrastructure intact. Their 1st agent, Ozai, handles sales order processing across email, WhatsApp, voicemails, even fax. The results are sharp, 97% of customer orders now run end-to-end without human touch, while 90% of order-entry staff shift into sales. What used to take 10 minutes per order now takes seconds, and Burnt is already pushing $10M+ in orders monthly. Customers include leading distributors across meat, seafood, and specialty foods, with one of the UK’s largest food conglomerates rolling out the system now. La Tua Pasta’s MD Nicolas Hanson was so impressed he invested.
The takeaway is clear. Burnt didn’t sell “modernization.” They sold competence, forged across 3 generations, paired with tech designed to work with reality instead of fighting it. Investors like Bryant Barr and Rich Scudellari at Penny Jar, Elizabeth Weil at Scribble, Solly Garber and Leeor Mushin at Formation, and Dan Scheinman backed this team because they saw the rare combo, credibility + execution.
Scaling from shrimp exports in the 1930s to AI agents named Ozai in 2025, that’s the kind of story that doesn’t just feed the industry, it wakes it up. Big congrats to Joseph Jacob, Rhea Karimpanal, Chandru Shanmugasundaram, and the Burnt crew for proving the future of food supply chains isn’t about tearing down the old walls, it’s about igniting what’s been left in the dark.
