UK's Winnow Acquires Singapore's Lumitics to Expand AI Food Waste Platform Across Asia-Pacific

Singapore has quietly built a meaningful presence in the food technology space, and this week that presence got a global vote of confidence. London-based Winnow, an AI-powered food waste measurement company operating across nearly 100 countries, has acquired Lumitics, a Singapore-founded food waste technology startup that has spent the last nine years building AI tools for commercial kitchens across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. The deal brings together two of the leading AI food waste platforms serving the hospitality sector, and signals that the region's food tech ecosystem is maturing beyond early-stage experimentation.

Lumitics was founded in 2017 by Rayner Loi and has since deployed its computer vision and data analytics platform across more than 20 countries. Its technology uses AI to identify, weigh, and categorise food waste as it is discarded — giving hotel kitchens real-time visibility into what is being thrown out and why. The startup's customer base includes major hospitality groups such as Accor, Hyatt, Marriott, and Four Seasons. It was backed by Velocity Ventures (a hospitality-focused VC) and impact angel investors including PropertyGuru founder Steve Melhuish.

For Winnow, the acquisition is a strategic move into a region that the World Travel and Tourism Council has identified as one of the fastest-growing markets for hospitality. Winnow's AI platform is already trusted by brands including IKEA, Hilton, and Accor, and helps kitchens save over US$100 million in food costs annually across 3,500 sites. By absorbing Lumitics, Winnow gains a regional team with deep operational insight into how food waste manifests across different Asian cuisines, kitchen formats, and hospitality environments — knowledge that is difficult to replicate from a London headquarters.

Lumitics' customers will gain access to Winnow's VisionAI platform, which includes advanced features like "Throw & Go" — an AI system that automatically identifies and logs food waste without requiring kitchen staff to scan or manually input data. The acquisition also means that Lumitics' existing clients will retain their data and be supported through a phased transition to Winnow's broader platform. For Singapore's startup ecosystem, the deal represents another successful exit in the food tech space, following similar moves by other local founders building globally relevant solutions from a small domestic market.

Why it matters for Singapore: The Winnow-Lumitics deal is a case study in how Singapore-based startups can build regionally relevant technology that attracts global acquirers. Lumitics grew from a 2017 founding into a platform deployed across 20+ countries — not by chasing the largest markets first, but by proving its technology works across the diverse cuisines and kitchen formats that define Asia-Pacific hospitality. That regional depth, combined with Singapore's position as a tech hub connecting Southeast Asia to global markets, made it a natural acquisition target for a London-based company looking to expand its APAC footprint. For the broader ecosystem, it reinforces that food tech — often overlooked in the flashier AI startup narrative — is a genuinely viable category for Singapore founders.