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Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: September 2016

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This is a monthly guest post written by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors; it highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

The food tech ecosystem brought in over $665 million of capital in September, with a little over half attributed to the IPO of Dutch food delivery marketplace Takeaway.com. There were 17 private companies who announced funding during the month, raising close to $300 million in total private capital, half of which were U.S.-based. Within this, Fresh Direct’s private equity infusion of $189 million was the largest raise during the month.

With six relatively early stage deals announced in September, M&A activity was a bit light but notably international as nearly every acquisition announced took place outside the U.S. Among the larger strategics, Just Eat and Zomato were active acquirers during the month as well as iZettle, a fast-growing mobile payments and POS startup.

While meal delivery, meal kits and grocery continue to be well-represented categories, there was a lot of activity among SaaS-based restaurant ops players, both on the M&A front as well as funding. Top themes included business automation, reservations and point of sale solutions.

M&A

Zomato Acquires Sparse Labs. The Guragon, India-based delivery monitoring technology will allow Zomato to enhance its delivery technology.  Sparse Labs technology allows both the company and customer to view the location and progress of a delivery in real time via mobile app. Zomato will incorporate this technology into its meal delivery services, which rely on individual restaurant’s own delivery teams to complete their orders. With the acquisition, Sparse Labs will become Zomato Trace.

Announced: 09/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2014

U-Feast Acquires Pass the Table. As a competitor to U-Feast which offers exclusive weekly “feasts” at different area restaurants, Pass the Table allows consumers to customize their menu and food experience at restaurants. Pass the Table will bring U-Feast 2,000 new customers. With the acquisition, the co-founders of Pass the Table will join U-Feast as a chief experience officer and a member of the board of directors. According to Betakit, in the coming year U-Feast plans to launch a new user interface focusing on “customization and building out its data analytics engine to better target customers”.

Announced: 09/23/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

1C Acquires Quick Resto. The Moscow-based SaaS solution for restaurant business automation sold a controlling stake to 1C, a Russian enterprise software giant. According to East-West Digital News, 1C intends to develop the company further with its founders.

Announced: 09/12/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Eating with the Seasons Acquires Bay Area Operations of Farmigo. Farmigo announced this summer that they would sell their delivery operations and continue solely working to develop their software system. Eating with the Seasons has bought the Bay Area operations and will add Farmigo customers to its current local food delivery service under the name Farmhouse Foods. Farmigo is reportedly looking to sell its Seattle and New York operations as well.

Announced: 09/09/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (Divestiture) Founded: 2009

iZettle Acquires intelligentpos. The Edinburgh, UK-based cloud-based point of sale system will enhance iZettle’s mobile point of sale system by integrating advanced features such as stock and table management. According to TechCrunch, intelligentpos, which has been a partner to iZettle for three years, will add another €500 million in processing volume to the €3 billion that iZettle already processes annually. TechCrunch also notes that this may be just the beginning of an acquisition spree for iZettle as the company is company is “looking to go beyond its original payment roots as a route to more recurring revenue and a wider customer base”.

Announced: 09/06/16  Terms: Not Disclosed (Cash and Equity) Previous Investment: $0.8m  Founded: 2013

Just Eat Acquires Partial Assets of Tok Tok Tok. The France-based shopping and delivery service, which operates similarly to Postmates, will provide Just Eat with logistics technology to further manage restaurant delivery drivers. According to TechCrunch, the company had been “on its last legs for a while now”, and with the sale of the assets will be shutting down.

Announced: 09/06/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $2.0m  Founded: February 2012

Revel Systems Acquires iqPOSitive. The Russian developer of cloud-based automation solutions for restaurant businesses offers tablet-based solutions for a range of process including checkout, employee schedule and inventory management. The transaction reportedly took place in May, with iqPOSitive now operating as a subsidiary of Revel Systems.

Announced: 08/15/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

FUNDING

Takeaway.com Raises $368m in IPO. The Amsterdam, Netherlands-based online meal delivery service allows consumers to order meals from restaurants for on-demand delivery. Takeaway provides restaurants with an online ordering platform, and the meals are delivered by restaurants’ own delivery services. Takeaway operates in Europe and parts of Asia. As TechCrunch notes, Takeaway.com priced its shares at €23 each ($25.82), giving the company an enterprise value of around €849 million ($952 million) and a market cap of around €993 million ($1.1 billion).

Announced: 09/30/16  Valuation (at IPO): $1.1 billion  Stage: IPO  Previous Investment: $118.0 million  Founded: 2000

Home Chef Raises $40m. The Chicago, IL-based meal kit delivery service offers a menu of recipe kits updated weekly. Kits include prepared ingredients and directions and can be customized with add-ons including breakfast and fruit baskets. Home Chef has distribution centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta and ships kits throughout the United States. The company delivers over 1.5 million meal kits per month, and has recently increased its team to 600. The investment will be used for growth.

Announced: 09/29/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: L Catterton  Previous Investment: $16.0 million  Founded: June 2013

VMO Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based platform for event scheduling allows customers to book venues for events for free. VMO offers over 650 venues and services, and 20% of those may be booked instantly online. Strategic investor, Rhombus Food, operates popular eateries in Malaysia and saw a stream of bookings to their restaurants from VMO, which led to the funding. VMO plans to use the investment to expand in Malaysia.

Announced: 09/27/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Rhombus Food Holdings  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: August 2014

Fresh Direct Raises $189m. The Long Island City, NY-based grocery delivery service has grown to $600 million in revenue and has been profitable since 2010. In addition to its core order-ahead service, Fresh Direct also operates FoodKick, which delivers food in an hour. Fresh Direct currently operates in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Delaware. The investment will be used for “manufacturing capacity” and expansion to “new geographies.” According to Reuters, the CEO has said it is ‘too early’ to comment on potential plans for either an initial public offering or a sale to a larger competitor.

Announced: 09/26/16  Stage: Private Equity  Participating Institutional Investors: J.P. Morgan Asset Management (lead), AARP, W Capital Partners  Previous Investment: $91.0 million  Founded: July 2002

Umi Kitchen Raises $1.4m. The New York, NY-based mobile app offers a home-cooked meal delivery marketplace. Home cooks apply to cook for the platform, and the app offers users 4 to 7 meal choices each night.  Meals are delivered to consumers by Postmates. Umi Kitchen currently operates in Brooklyn and Manhattan for dinners five days a week.

Announced: 09/26/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: BoxGroup, Version One Ventures, SWTLF Ventures, YEI Innovation Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2015

Chef’s Plate Raises $6m. The Toronto, Canada-based meal kit delivery service allows consumers to select recipes they want to cook and delivers pre-portioned ingredients and directions. Recipe offerings are changed weekly, and each meal takes about 30 minutes to prepare once delivered. Chef’s Plate currently has distribution centers in Ontario and Vancouver. An estimated 200,000 kits are delivered each month, with sales increasing 10 percent week to week.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Acton Capital Partners (lead), BrandProject, Emil Capital Partners, Linas Matkasse  Previous Investment: $2.0 million  Founded: December 2014

Brava Raises $12m. The Mountain View, CA-based domestic automation company specializing in food and kitchen experiences produces hardware and software to “simplify aspects of daily life”. Brava is currently working on a kitchen appliance, and according to TechCrunch, the product will be “for everyone” and “not a luxury item.” Brava plans to launch their first product sometime next year.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: True Ventures (lead), Aileen Lee, Chris Anderson, Robert H Reid  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Allset Raises $2.35m. The San Francisco, CA-based mobile app allows restaurant patrons to book a table, order their meal, and pay in advance. The aim of the app is to decrease wait time and let consumers finish their restaurant experience in 30 minutes. Allset currently operates in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Manhattan. It operates in over 180 restaurants and serves over 8,500 customers per month. The investment will be used for expansion to Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as product research, development, and marketing.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Compound (lead), Andreessen Horowitz, FJ Labs, SMRK VC Fund  Previous Investment: $1.5 million  Founded: April 2015

SmartBite Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Petaling Jaya, Malaysia-based food delivery service delivers lunches to working professionals. People who use the service get a text message each morning with a daily menu and reply with their choice of options to select their meal. Currently, SmartBite only offers lunch deliveries, but the company has plans to offer breakfast, snacks, and take-home dinners.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Marna Capital, Noodles, Rhombus  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Swiggy Raises $15m. The Bangalore, India-based meal delivery service provides restaurant meals to consumers with on-demand delivery. Swiggy claims to have the fastest delivery rates in India, with an average time of 37 minutes. Swiggy currently operates in 8 cities, works with over 9000 restaurants, and processes over 40000 orders per day. The funding will be used to increase delivery efficiency, upgrade technology, and expand the number of restaurants.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, SAIF Partners  Previous Investment: $60.5 million  Founded: August 2014

FoodChéri raises $6.7m. The Paris, France-based online restaurant offers healthy meals prepared by chefs for delivery. Orders are taken in advance and on-demand, and meals are delivered ready to reheat. FoodCheri currently serves over 1,000 meals per day and operates in Paris and surrounding suburbs. The company will use the funding to expand in France, to increase its staff, and to develop.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: 360 Capital Partners (lead), Breega Capital (lead), Samaipata Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2015

Sourcery Raises $5m. The San Francisco, CA-based app allows restaurants to digitally manage orders, inventory, and costs. Restaurants can scan and upload invoices and receipts, and the Sourcery app will organize the information. Sourcery will use the funds to create an app feature that will allow vendors to send and track invoices and bill customers.

Announced: 09/13/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Marker (lead), Palantir Technologies, Steadfast Venture Capital  Previous Investment: $8.0 million  Founded: 2012

eBev raises $1.5m.  The Sydney, Australia-based online platform allows wholesale wine purchasers to manage their inventories and order directly from wine sellers. The platform includes 22,000 wines and is currently used by 700 venues. eBev aims to have 8,000 venues using the platform in the next year. The investment will be used to expand to Melbourne and other areas, as well as to expand services—including offering more wines and further developing customer relationship and payment tools.

Announced: 09/12/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: September 2014

Idea Chakki Raises Undisclosed Funding. The New Delhi, India-based mobile app works with restaurants to provide digital video menus and allow customers to gift food and beverages across the world. Currently Idea Chakki operates in six restaurants, and the company aims to expand to 30 restaurants by the end of this year. The funding will be used to expand to new locations, build the team, and advance technology.

Announced: 09/12/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Ratan Tata  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Salido Raises $2m. The New York, NY-based restaurant operating system lets restaurants manage workers, point of sale, inventories, and customer relations from one operating system. Having overall management of restaurants sets Salido apart from other operating systems which focus individually on single aspects of restaurant management, such as point of sale or orders. At present, Salido has processed $27 million in transactions for more than 1 million guests.

Announced: 09/08/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Phil Suarez  Previous Investment: $2.0 million  Founded: 2012

GoSpotCheck Raises $16.5m. The Denver, CO-based mobile data collection app helps companies collect and analyze inventory, display and price information.  The data analysis helps companies make better retail decisions, such as how best to display their products to increase business. Clients include The Dannon Company and Labatt Brewing Company. GoSpotCheck will use the funds to hire more employees and develop new app features.

Announced: 09/07/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Point Nine Capital, Insight Venture Partners  Previous Investment: $9.5 million  Founded: June 2011

VizEat Raises $4.3m. The Paris, France-based “social dining platform” allows travelers to eat a local, home-cooked meal in a home where they are visiting. In addition to meals, some VizEat hosts also offer cooking classes and food tours. To date, VizEat has over 20000 hosts in 110 countries. The funding will be used for growth, and VizEat plans to open offices in the UK and Germany, in addition to its current offices in France, Spain, and Italy.

Announced: 09/06/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Eurovestech  Previous Investment: $1.3 million  Founded: 2014

DayBox Raises $600k. The New Delhi, India-based platform for fresh produce sales connects farms with restaurants and retailers. At present, over 30 farms and 50 restaurants use the platform. The funding will be used to grow the team, develop technology, and to expand to Bangalore and Mumbai.

Announced: 09/01/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Ashutosh Lawania, Badal Malick, Rajul Jain, Rishi Gupta  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

PARTNERSHIPS

Edamam Partners with Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Tablespoon and QueRicaVida to provide nutrition information.

Fishbowl Partners with Groupon to help restaurants measure and analyze success of Groupon campaigns.

Revel Systems Partners with Punchh to enhance restaurant customer mobile engagement.

Hershey Partners with Chef’d to make dessert meal kits.

EatStreet Partners with Pingup to allow consumers to order food directly from Yahoo and YP searches.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As the Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

 

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and the Summer 2016 round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: September 2016 appeared first on .


2014 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report

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Food Tech and Media Industry 2015 - Rosenheim Advisors and Leon Mayer
This annual report looks at the financing and acquisition trends in the Food Tech & Media ecosystem, which encompasses digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics.

Over $5.3 Billion of Private Capital Invested from 2012 to 2014

The U.S. food tech and food media industry continued to grow in 2014 with a total of $2.4 billion of private capital invested into the ecosystem – 42% greater than 2013’s $1.7 billion, and twice as much as 2012’s influx of $1.2 billion. Additionally, four food tech and media companies – Grubhub, Coupons.com, Just Eat (LSE), and Everyday Health – entered the public markets in 2014, representing a combined $6.1 billion of market capitalization (at offerings).

Excluding fund raising by the more broadly-focused internet companies Pinterest, Square and Evernote, in 2014 there were 103 U.S. private company investments in this adjusted group, which funneled $1.9 billion into the space, almost doubling the investments of the adjusted group in 2013 (see Footnote (1) in the chart below for further details on the “Adjusted Group”). The Catering Marketplaces and Meal Delivery category was most active, with 13% of the total number of funding events, while the Online Grocery category brought in the most cash with $313.5 million in private funding (excluding the CPG Coupon category, which was boosted by ABRY Partners’ significant investment into Inmar).

Overall, the year rounded out with 43 U.S M&A deals in the sector, versus 46 deals in 2013. Although there were slightly fewer acquisitions in 2014, the acquired companies were better capitalized than their 2013 counterparts, pointing to less straight “acqui-hire” deals in 2014. The average amount of funding before exit increased to $14.2 million in 2014, from $12.7 million in 2013, and median amount of funding before exit increased to $6.3 million, from $3.9 million in 2013.

U.S. Food Tech Investment and Acquisition Data - Rosenheim Advisors

Source: Rosenheim Advisors.
(1) Adjusted; excludes investment data for: Evernote, Fab.com, Instagram, LivingSocial and Pinterest.
(2) Does not include M&A deals.
Note: Data for U.S.-based companies only, and reflects the sectors found in the Food Tech and Media Industry Map. Investment data does not include any M&A data or public market offerings. Due to new company and funding updates, the 2012 and 2013 data reflected in this chart does not equal the data provided in the 2013 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report.

Growing Capitalization as the Industry Continues to Evolve

Noticeably, there was a sharp decline in the number of fundraising deals in 2014, dropping from 168 deals in 2013 to 106 deals in 2014. This is in part due to food tech companies (and their business plans) continuing to evolve from thesis-testing and market validation to building a scalable model and expansion, thus attracting a wider variety of institutional firms which are participating more frequently, in larger and later-stage investment rounds. Case in point, in 2014, 39% of private investment deal sizes in this space were $10 million or larger, versus 20%, 18%, and 19% in 2013, 2012, and 2011, respectively.

Food Tech Investment Deal Sizes by Year - Rosenheim Advisors

Source: Rosenheim Advisors.
Note: Data for U.S.-based companies only, and reflects the sectors found in the Food Tech and Media Industry Map. Investment data does not include any M&A data or public market offerings.

This trend was also seen on the M&A front, with a broad set of technology and media incumbents looking to the food vertical to bolster business, ranging from existing industry players (including Kroger, Open Table, Scripps, Trip Advisor, and Yelp) to strategics that previously had little exposure to the food ecosystem. Significant examples of the later include Oracle’s acquisition of Micros Systems and Datalogix, as well as Priceline’s acquisition of OpenTable.

As the sector evolves towards increased institutionalization and consolidation, heavyweights in the tech industry will continue look to food innovators in order to increase market share and layer in new revenue streams and services. This impacts early stage companies as well, as I think the rise in incumbents – both traditional and digital – focusing on this space will likely create additional exit paths for the variety of startups that will ultimately require a larger platform to survive.

Further, while some consolidation has already begun, I think 2015 will be a year of opportunity for established companies looking to expand their geographic empires in this space (as seen by the tremendous international acquisition activity in the restaurant delivery/discovery vertical). For additional thoughts on the upcoming year, check out Street Fight‘s take on the likely priorities of potential acquirers, as well as Food + Tech Connect’s 2015 Food Trends piece.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out last month’s round-up.

 

The post 2014 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

February was an exceptionally lucrative month for the food tech and media industry, with a reported $1.8 billion invested into the sector through 19 acquisitions and thirteen private capital raises. Impressively, this figure doesn’t even include thirteen deals which had undisclosed terms.

Rocket Internet and its newly formed “Global Online Takeaway Group” dominated the activity with an acquisition tear (twelve acquisitions were related to Rocket Internet), representing an aggregate of $856 million invested (still less than half of the total reported influx). But in fact, platform plays were reflected in many of the M&A deals in February. Consolidation was seen both through newly created platforms such as Under Armour’s UA Record, or the merging of older legacy businesses into new platforms, such as Grubhub’s two delivery acquisitions and Heartland’s two POS acquisitions.

Of the many significant developments in the online ordering and delivery sector this month, I’ll begin with Rocket Internet’s substantial strategic move to “create the biggest Internet-based food-ordering service outside of China.” The publicly-traded Berlin-based e-commerce and investment group has been funding the rapid global consolidation of the food delivery sector over the years through its numerous holdings, and now has made a significant move to consolidate its own investments in the sector (now including foodpanda, Delivery Hero, Talabat, La Nevera Roja, Pizzabo and Yemeksepeti) to form the “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

There were a series of transactions that accomplished this feat (this press release goes into further depth), however two of the cornerstone transactions involved the 30% minority acquisition of Delivery Hero (in March it was further increased to approx. 40%), and the increased direct ownership in foodpanda to 52% (as a result of primary and secondary transactions in a new fundraise announced in March). Further acquisitions and funding details are detailed in the M&A and Funding sections below.

I definitely recommend spending some time with Rocket Internet’s presentation discussing its investment thesis in the food sector to gain a clearer understanding of the vision behind the consolidation – some great industry stats in there as well. Notably, although HelloFresh is key to Rocket Internet’s thesis on investing in the food and grocery sector, HelloFresh is not part of the newly created “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

As mentioned above, Grubhub also made some news in February with its foray into food delivery through the acquisition of two 25+ year old companies who provide restaurant delivery and corporate catering services. Grubhub said the move was intended to expand the total addressable market from restaurants that already offer delivery, and would create both economic and service advantages for a Grubhub over a third-party logistics strategy.

This could be a game changer for Grubhub, and Dan Primack at Fortune notes it may make it an attractive acquisition target in its own right if Grubhub can own the restaurant delivery business, but Street Fight also points out that it’s “unclear whether Grubhub’s scale between markets actually improves the economics or quality of a delivery network in a given market.” Street Fight goes on to discuss the potential liabilities that come with operating its own proprietary network through a contract labor model, and further notes, “If delivery is [purely] a commodity… then the company would be better suited to maximize reach and reduce liability by leaving the operations to third parties. If not, then the move will help Grubhub enter a potentially massive market.”

On that note, it is interesting that Yelp, which previously developed its online ordering network through partnerships with third party companies as part of its Platform initiative, made a move in stark contrast to this strategy by acquiring Eat24 to now operate its own proprietary ordering platform. While a Yelp spokesman told Street Fight that the company expects its “online booking and ordering partners to continue as Platform partners,” it’s fair to assume that partners’ revenue streams will be impacted, as Eat24 will now likely hold precedent over other companies. Read below for additional details and thoughts on the acquisitions.

M&A

JustEat Acquires SinDelantal.Mx. The Mexico-based online ordering platform will add 3,000 restaurants in Mexico, and a Latin American presence to the London-based, publically traded JustEat. TechCrunch reports that the acquisition is “thought to be one of the largest, if not the largest, online company exits in Mexico.”

Announced: 02/16/15 Terms: Estimated to be “north of $20 millionPrevious Investment: $3.2m  Founded: January 2012

Heartland Acquires Dinerware and pcAmerica. The payments processor and a provider of merchant business solutions continued it shopping spree in the hospitality and retail POS markets through the acquisition of both Dinerware and pcAmerica, two leading point-of-sale companies focused on the restaurant, hospitality and retail sectors. The company reported that these two cloud-based POS systems will overlap with what is being developed by Leaf (which Heartland acquired in August 2014), and consequently it will stop POS development and write down related POS assets at Leaf, though “certain elements of Leaf’s capabilities will become part of Heartland Commerce.”

Announced: 02/13/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Dineware – 2000; pcAmerica – 1985

Yelp Acquires Eat24. The San Bruno, CA-based food delivery platform will expand Yelp’s services to include food ordering. As Street Fight points out, Yelp has spent the past 18 months developing partnerships with online ordering and booking services as part of its Platform initiative, which included Eat24 as well as other delivery partners like Delivery.com, in order to allow integration within Yelp’s listing pages so that users can book and order food without leaving the search page. In terms of the larger industry implications, Street Fight comments that Yelp has now essentially become Grubhub’s largest competitor other than Google, and “reflects an ongoing verticalization of the search industry driven by a mobile consumer who increasingly expects to find and buy in the same app.” This may be the case on the consumer-facing side of the business, however Grubhub’s deeper integration via its new delivery network may create stronger ties to infrastructure and margin improvements for restaurants that Yelp can’t provide.

Announced: 02/10/15 Terms: $134m ($75m stock, $59m cash) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2008

Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” Acquires Talabat. The Kuwait-based food delivery portal operates in Middle Eastern countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with over 1,300 partner restaurants, and will be part of the newly created Global Online Takeaway Group.

Announced: 02/11/15 Terms: $169.9m Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (but this article discusses the company’s growth and investors through the years)  Founded: January 2004

Foodpanda Acquires Six Companies in Asia, One Company in the Middle East. Shortly after a series of acquisitions in Europe, Latin America and India, the foodpanda group (now a part of Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” – see above) continues to acquire market share through the addition of six more companies in seven countries across Asia, including the takeover of JustEat’s India operations, which complements the recent TastyKhana acquisition. According to The Economic Times, JustEat had relinquished its majority stake to 49.9% in its India entity in November 2013, when Axon Partners Group and Forum Synergies India invested an undisclosed amount. The other acquired companies and countries include: Room Service, a brand of Food Runner, in Malaysia and Singapore; City Delivery, also a brand of Food Runner, in the Philippines; EatOye in Pakistan; Koziness in Hong Kong, and in Thailand, foodpanda entered into a partnership with Food By Phone. Separately, foodpanda acquired 24h.ae, an online food ordering marketplace in the United Arab Emirates founded in 2011.

Announced: 02/06/15 and 02/11/15 Terms: Not Disclosed

Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” Acquires La Nevera Roja and Pizzabo. The two ordering and delivery startups, La Nevera Roja, an online food ordering platform providing delivery and takeaway service, and Pizzabo, a Bologna, Italy-based delivery platform for takeaway pizzas and other food, will be part of the newly created Global Online Takeaway Group.

Announced: 02/06/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: La Nevera Roja – $14.3m; Pizzabo – Not Disclosed Founded: La Nevera Roja – January 2011; Pizzabo – 2009

Grubhub Acquires DiningIn and Restaurants on the Run. In an effort to build its own delivery network and preempt on-demand delivery aspirants, Grubhub acquired Brighton, MA-based DiningIn and Aliso Viejo, CA-based Restaurants on the Run – both of which focus on restaurant delivery and corporate catering services. As Street Fight notes, the move marks “a transition in the company’s strategy from a focus on moving an existing delivery market online to using the web to expand the delivery market as a whole.” The company said the deals will give the company a combined relationship with over 3,000 restaurants over 15 markets in the U.S. Street Fight also reports that the company said it plans to essentially break even on the delivery service, and use additional cost savings to reduce delivery fees paid by customers, while merchants will also pay a nominally higher commission rate for deliveries operated by Grubhub. Dan Primak at Fortune further discusses the competitive implications and dynamics of the acquisitions, it is worth a read.

Announced: 02/05/15 Terms: Approximately $80m for the two deals combined Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: DiningIn – 1988; ROTR – January 1993

Under Armour Acquires MyFitnessPal and Endomondo. With the goal of creating a global digital health and fitness community, the sports performance company acquired MyFitnessPal, a San Francisco-based service for letting users track and share calorie intake and other health and wellness data, and Endomondo, a Denmark-based social fitness network and activity tracker. The two acquisitions complement the 2013 acquisition of MapMyFitness, and will provide Under Armour with additional technology for its recently launched UA Record fitness tracking app and website, which will be connected with 120 million unique global consumers. Notably, as Mobile Health News reports, Under Armour’s strategy no longer includes the plan to build its own wearable tech or digital tech platform (Apple HealthKit, Google Fit, etc.), rather, the company is focused on building the community to integrate with all the active players in the space.

MyFitnessPal Announced: 02/04/15 Terms: $475.0m Previous Investment: $18.0m (at a valuation of $108m) Founded: 2005

Endomondo Announced: 02/04/15 Terms: $85.0m Previous Investment: $8.2m Founded: 2007

TripAdvisor Acquires ZeTrip. The San Mateo, CA-based mobile app company is the creator of Rove, a travel inspiration-themed personal journal app, which provides a travelogue of users’ movements based on their GPS coordinates and other data. ZeTrip’s three-person team will be integrated into TripAdvisor’s mobile team, and it is unclear if the Rove product will continue to operate as a standalone offering. TechCrunch notes that TripAdvisor has been focused on acquiring businesses that help pick up data about how consumers travel, which allows it to extend its lifecycle with its customers by serving a more relevant role during and after the trip, and ultimately, potentially feeding TripAdvisor’s bigger business by leveraging strategies for advertising and other marketing services.

Announced: 02/02/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: November 2011

FUNDING

Grofers Raises $10m. The Gurgaon, India-based online mobile delivery app delivers produce and other goods from local stores on-demand. Grofers currently works with vendors from Mumbai and Delhi, and processes over 30,000 deliveries every month. According to TechCrunch Grofers will use the capital to expand into more cities and improve technology so that stores can more easily manage orders, track inventory, and upload new products by themselves.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Previous Investment: $0.5 million Founded: December 2013

Chefs Feed Raises $4m. The San Francisco-based food media and technology platform showcases restaurant recommendations by chefs, and considers itself the antithesis of Yelp for restaurants and food discovery. The company aims to help chefs and their restaurants regain the ability to shape the narrative supporting their brand and food. As an example, in order to help chefs build their personal followings, Chefs Feed generates specialized content, including behind-the-scenes videos of restaurants, which are then featured on sites like Foursquare, Food & Wine and Urbanspoon. The company will use the new funding to expand its development team, execute new outreach campaigns, extend to more cities, and debut new products.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: ARTIS Ventures, Structure Capital, Haas Portman, Subtraction Capital Previous Investment: $3.2 million Founded: 2011

TinyOwl Raises $16m. The Mumbai, India-based food ordering service allows customers to order take-out via its iOS and Android apps. The funding will be used for national level expansion and innovating on the products, focusing on user experience. TinyOwl’s services are currently available only in Mumbai, but the company plans to expand to 50 cities in India.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Nexus Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners Previous Investment: $3.0 million Founded: 2012

Chewse Raises $700k. The Los Angeles-based B2B group delivery/catering platform focuses on serving offices, and distinguishes itself by presenting only high quality restaurants/dishes that it curates for its corporate clients rather than aggregating all catering options available in the area. In conjunction with the fundraise, Chewse announced it has served 100,000 meals, and plans to use the funding to expand its catering service.

Announced: 02/23/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Rocketship.VC Previous Investment: $1.0 million Founded: July 2011

Main Street Hub Raises $20m. The Austin, TX-based “do-it-for you” local marketing platform offers an integrated social, web, and email marketing solution designed to help local restaurants and merchants drive more customers. The company will use the proceeds to expand the teams in its Austin and New York City offices, especially focusing on the engineering and product teams.

Announced: 02/22/15 Stage: Debt Financing Participating Institutional Investors: Silicon Valley Bank Previous Investment: $20.9 million Founded: June 2009

Pocket Concierge Raises Seed Funding. The Tokyo, Japan-based restaurant booking platform focuses on high end-restaurants, allowing Pocket Concierge users to bookmark popular restaurants with long waiting lists. In the event of an unexpected cancellation, the restaurant will email users with bookmarks to fill vacancies. The undisclosed amount of funding was provided by strategic investor Line, an international messaging app, which had just disclosed its establishment of a $42 million fund for startup investments. Line announced that it aims to integrate services like Line Pay and Line Taxi into Pocket Concierge and its partner restaurants.

Announced: 02/17/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Line Previous Investment: $0.6 million Founded: July 2011

Postmates Raises $35m. The San Francisco-based online delivery service is a developer of consumer-facing logistics software that dispatches and guides couriers through major metropolitan areas to deliver local goods including prepared food, groceries and retail goods. Most recently, Postmates launched its own API, through which third-party sellers and app developers can offer same-day delivery powered by Postmates. As TechCrunch points out, scale is the most important factor in the on-demand delivery industry, in which winners are determined by who has the most surface area and the lowest prices, thus the company intends to use the funds to expand operations.

Announced: 02/20/15 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Spark Capital Previous Investment: $23.0 million Founded: 2011

Reserve Raises $15m. The New York-based digital concierge for diners and restaurants aims to address friction in the dining experience by combining reservations, feedback on service, and payment through its app. Reserve is currently partnered with restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston and plans to use the funding to expand operations nationwide. In addition to institutional investors, funding also came from a few celebrities, including Jared Leto, Will.i.am, and Jon Favreau.

Announced: 02/11/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Expa (lead), Human Ventures Capital (lead), Visionnaire Ventures, Venture51, SV Angel, SherpaVentures, Advancit Capital, Lowercase Capital, First Round Previous Investment: $2.3 million Founded: 2014

Delivery Hero Raises $324m from Rocket Internet; Rocket Internet Invests Additional $236m through Selling Shareholders (Secondary Sale). In creating its new Global Online Takeaway Group, Rocket Internet invested close to $560 million into the massive Berlin, Germany-based aggregator of online ordering/delivery services, and mobile food ordering technology for restaurants. The investment resulted in a minority stake of 30% for Rocket Internet, and values the company at $1.9 billion. As Bloomberg points out, the investment also “marks a departure from Rocket’s usual strategy, which consists of building businesses from the ground up.”

Announced: 02/06/15 Stage: Series H  Valuation: $1.9 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet Previous Investment: $656.7 million Founded: September 2010

HelloFresh Raises $126m. The New York, and Berlin, Germany-based subscription meal kit company delivers boxed “ready-to-make meals” containing with recipes and pre-portioned ingredients on a weekly basis. The company currently serves customers across the United States and aims to become the leading brand in the grocery and meal delivery sector. Outside the US, the company is active in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Australia. According to TechCrunch, HelloFresh will use the funding towards hiring new staff, expanding facilities, and general improvements of the supply chain and customer experience. Notably, although HelloFresh is key to Rocket Internet’s thesis on investing in the food and grocery sector, HelloFresh is not part of the newly created “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

Announced: 02/06/15 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet, Insight Venture Partners Previous Investment: $67.5 million Founded: 2011

YuMist Raises $1m. The Gurgaon, India-based startup offers a logistics and supply-chain-focused technology platform through which customers in the Gurgaon area can order food through a mobile app and receive deliveries in less than 30 minutes. YuMist employs its own chefs and uses a centralized kitchen to make homemade food from a predetermined menu. The company caters to office goers, and will use the proceeds to towards geographical expansion and furthering its production, technology, and delivery infrastructure.

Announced: 02/02/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Orios Venture Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: October 2014

Frsh Raises $518k. The Gurgaon, India-based online meal service startup provides urban professionals access to a healthy food space for meal options. The company manages and operates its own production and supply chain within Gurgaon, and customers can choose meals, snacks, salads, and sandwich options from the Frsh website for delivery. Frsh will use the funding to upgrade its kitchen, launch an android app, update its website, and digitize the supply chain and delivery process.

Announced: 02/03/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Kae Capital, India Quotient Previous Investment: $100k Founded: 2014

Hao Chushi Raises $800k. The Shanghai, China-based home catering app is a platform that connects users to nearby chefs who can be hired to cook in-home. Customers get the benefit of receiving a customizable home-cooked meal, while chefs have the freedom to choose their own work schedule and cook different kinds of cuisines, as opposed to preparing dishes from a set menu. The app currently serves Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou. The funding will be used towards expansion into more cities and improving service quality.

Announced: 02/02/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Angels Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: September 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

JC Penney partners with Epicurious.com to exclusively sell Epicurious brand cookware, Epicurious’ first product line.

Schedule101 partners with COMMLOG to integrate web-based employee scheduling within COMMLOG’s Virtual Manager Log.

Viggle partners with inMarket to deliver mobile advertising capabilities by providing offers and branded engagement to Viggle users based on context and users’ proximity to retail location.

Mars, Incorporated partners with UC Davis to launch Innovation Institute For Food And Health with the aim to advance new discoveries in sustainable food, agriculture and health.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

With a handful of significant late stage transactions and good mix of earlier-stage deals, March activity rounded out to almost $2.0 billion in investments through fundraising and acquisitions. With four acquisitions ($505.5 million), seventeen private capital raises ($1.47 billion) and one public company private placement ($1.2 million), delivery was still a prominent theme as were a variety of technology platforms for ordering, payment, reservations, reviews and more. About half of the fundraising took place outside of the U.S.

Mirroring the investment trends, much discussion in the media continues to focus on the “1099 Economy” and the overall delivery business model. While delivery foodtech startups like Instacart, Postmates and Caviar are being sued over labor practices, investment is still pouring into the sector as companies race to grow transactions and own each market as they expand their geographic footprint. Although current market conditions are a indeed frothy, there is still room for new specialized market segments to blossom (alcohol delivery is a recent example), where businesses need to layer in new strategies in order to tap into the new generation of smartphone-wielding shoppers.

M&A

ShopKeep Acquires Payment Revolution. The Northbrook, IL-based credit card processing startup will enable ShopKeep, a NYC-based mobile payments startup, to offer payment processing as a part of its point-of-sale platform. As a part of the deal, ShopKeep will operate under the new name, ShopKeep Payments. TechCrunch reports that the two companies were already partnering together, and the deal will allow the ShopKeep to provide a simpler product to better meet the need of merchants.

Announced: 03/25/2015 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: NA Founded: 2009

Minibar Delivery Acquires Booze Carriage. The New York City-based Booze Carriage, similar to Minibar Delivery, is an alcohol delivery platform that connects users to their local liquor stores to provide delivery. According to the release, Booze Carriage’s user base of 25,000 is expected to increase Minibar’s sales by 20%, and expand Minibar’s beer selection as well as its distribution capabilities. TechCrunch notes that the acquisition of Booze Carriage marks Minibar’s expansion to become the biggest player in the NYC place.

Announced: 03/20/2015 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

Recruit Acquires Quandoo. The Berlin, Germany-based restaurant reservation platform is used by restaurants in Europe, Africa, and Asia to provide restaurant operators with a table and reservation management system, aimed at raising operational productivity and service quality. Recruit, a publically-traded Japanese human resources firm, reports that the acquisition of Quandoo will enable Recruit to expand its service and global reach as part of its goal to become the world’s largest “global matching platform.” Notably, Quandoo took a strategic investment from Recruit — via its RGIP venture capital fund — in late 2014, and now with this acquisition is wholly-owned by the company’s venture group.

Announced: 03/05/2015 Terms: $225.5m Previous Investment: $55.5m Founded: December 2012

PayPal Acquires Paydiant. The Wellesley, MA-based payment service enables large retail chains to create their own branded mobile wallet apps and currently serves 162 million users. Given Paydiant’s popularity among retailers and banks, its acquisition positions PayPal for growth in areas outside of internet payments. As TechCrunch points out, “adding Paydiant will bring more point-of-sale volume on to PayPal’s platform.” The deal gives Paydiant the opportunity to scale its business, and PayPal a path to becoming a stronger business partner for merchants, including restaurants, by providing a payment method in app-based platforms.

Announced: 03/02/2015 Terms: $280m Previous Investment: $34.6m Founded: 2010

FUNDING

MyLorry Raises Undisclosed Amount from Delivery Hero. Berlin-based MyLorry offers delivery for restaurants that don’t have their own logistic service. As Venture Village reports, Delivery Hero invested a “double-digit Euro million amount” for 16% of MyLorry’s shares.

Announced: 03/31/15 Stage: Seed Participating Investors: Delivery Hero Previous Investment: $2.3 million Founded: May 2013

MyCheck Raises $5m. The Tel Aviv, Israel and New York-based mobile payment app for restaurants and merchants allows customers to check in, view, split and pay their bills using mobile devices. The company’s technology platform is built into a number of apps and integrates with 27 different Points-of-Sale systems, allowing MyCheck to reach over 80 million consumers. TechCrunch notes that since its launch, MyCheck has pivoted to a B2B model, with analytics to allow customers to redeem special offers and be rewarded for loyalty. The company will use the new funding to accelerate its international expansion focusing on the US and Western Europe, boost sales and marketing, and augment its business intelligence capabilities. Notably, the investment comes from Santander’s new Innoventures Fund, which adds strategic “expertise and scale,” and the potential to have portfolio company’s marketed to the bank’s 107 million-plus retail and commercial customers across Europe and the Americas.

Announced: 03/29/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Santander Innoventures Fund Previous Investment: $6.1 million Founded: March 2011

ChowNow Raises $10m. The Venice, California-based online ordering and marketing platform enables restaurants to take orders through their website, Facebook page, and via branded smartphone apps specific for each restaurant. The company has recently expanded its management team as well as its services to integrate with Apple Pay, Yelp, and Google, and plans to introduce a new catering product and other enhancements to its core product. The funding will be used towards growth acceleration and product launch.

Announced: 03/26/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Upfront Ventures (lead), Steadfast Venture Capital, Daher Capital, Karlin Ventures Previous Investment: $7.7 million Founded: 2012

DoorDash Raises $40m. The Palo Alto-based on-demand restaurant food delivery platform makes it possible for small businesses to provide local delivery services to their customers. DoorDash currently services eight markets across the country. The company claims its on-demand delivery infrastructure enables customers to receive delivered goods in less than 45 minutes and ensures reliable deliveries in times of irregular demand. The company will use the proceeds towards expansion into new markets across the country and further investment in logistics technology to scale its platform beyond food.

Announced: 03/26/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Charles River Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: $19.7 million Founded: January 2013

Teabox Raises $6m. The Darjeeling, India-based online tea-seller distributes tea from the origin directly to a global consumer base. The company is vertically integrated and works directly with tea plantations in India and Nepal. According to TechCrunch, by handling distribution, supply, storage, and logistics itself, Teabox eliminates supply chain inefficiencies and is thus able to sell products at higher profit margins and ensure rapid delivery. Teabox will use the funding towards expansion into newer markets, infrastructure development, talent acquisition, and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 03/24/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: JAFCO Asia, Keystone Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, Accel Partners Previous Investment: $1 million Founded: July 2012

ezCater Raises $11.7m. The Boston-based online catering platform connects people with local caterers and restaurants across the U.S, with a specific focus on business catering. ezCater has partnered with over 40,000 caterers in the country to deliver meals for meetings and events of up to 2,000 people. The new funds will be used to hire employees, focusing on expanding its digital marketing, brand marketing, and software engineering teams.

Announced: 03/23/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Insight Venture Partners, Breton Capital Management, Launchpad Venture Group Previous Investment: $6.8 million Founded: August 2007

Kitchenbowl Raises $1m. The Seattle-based startup describes itself as a community in which users can share and discover recipes. The company has both a mobile and web platform, and aims to distinguish itself by offering step-by-step recipes, each with an accompanying GIF to guide clarity. In addition, users can find new content by following other users. Kitchenbowl aims to eventually enable users to purchase ingredients for the recipes through its platform.

Announced: 03/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Sugar Mountain Capital, Chasing Unicorns, Indicator Fund Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Maple Raises $22m. The New York-based startup, with notable involvement by chef David Chang, will launch and operate a delivery-only kitchen that serves restaurant quality meals to subscribers in New York in the coming months. The company is designed to be vertically integrated, distinguishing itself from other meal delivery startups by managing orders, food preparation, and delivery. Maple will use the new funding to develop its product, hire staff, and build out infrastructure and marketing.

Announced: 03/20/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Greenoaks Capital, Primary Ventures, Thrive Capital Previous Investment: $4.0 million Founded: 2014

Thirstie Raises $1.1m. The New York-based wine, spirits, and beer delivery app serves as a marketing platform for liquor stores. Through the company’s mobile platform, users can order alcohol from nearby stores that offers delivery services. TechCrunch reports that the company aims to establish a relationship with consumers through alcohol-related content, currently featured via microsites dedicated to the drinking culture of the customer’s region. Thirstie has partnered with over 100 liquor retailers and operates in markets including Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City, and plans to use the funding to expand into new markets, as well as speed customer acquisition, enhance product development, and increase support provision.

Announced: 03/19/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Angels Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: February 2013

Pinterest Raises $367m. The San Francisco, CA-based visual discovery platform raised capital at a valuation of $11 billion, more than doubling the valuation from $5 billion last May. As Bloomberg reports, Pinterest has been working to build out its advertising model, through which brands can pay to promote their posts. The company is also investing to expand internationally and improve its product.

Announced: 03/16/15 Stage: Series G Valuation: Approximately $11 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Innovation Department, Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz Previous Investment: $762.5 million Founded: January 2009

Oddle Raises $718k. The Singapore-based food ordering platform enables smaller restaurants to join the online ordering market by managing the logistics of online deliveries and pick-ups. A subscription service, Oddle allows customers to order food through a branded page customizable by the restaurant, while providing restaurant operators with an order management system. Unlike competing services that charge restaurants per order transaction, Oddle charges a flat fee for every restaurant outlet, which allows restaurants to make a higher profit if their online businesses are successful. Oddle intends to use the fresh injection of capital to focus on regional expansion into major cities, in addition to platform development to allow enable multiple language functions and back-end infrastructure strengthening to support larger capacities.

Announced: 03/16/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Investors: East Ventures, Holly Tan Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2014

Retty Raises $8.2m. The Tokyo, Japan-based social platform enables users to rate and review restaurants and see which spots are popular with their friends. The site presently sees an estimated 8 million monthly visitors. Retty plans to use the funding for international expansion to the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Announced: 03/16/2015 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Fidelity Growth Partners Japan, Gree Ventures, Mizuho Capital Previous Investment: $4.4 million Founded: 2011

Favor Raises $13m. The Austin-based on-demand food delivery app allows users to have products delivered from local grocery stores and restaurants. Through Favor’s mobile app, users can identify their desired food or grocery item along with the store they might want to purchase from. Favor’s delivery people can stay in touch with customers through text message as they seek out the products for delivery. The company currently serves Austin, Boston, Houston, and Dallas, and plans to use to the funding to improve customer services and expand into seven to ten new cities this year.

Announced: 03/13/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Silverton Partners, S3 Ventures Previous Investment: $3.9 million Founded: April 2012

FoodPanda Raises $110m. After a major acquisition spree in India, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia, the Berlin-based food delivery marketplace, which is now part of Rocket Internet’s newly formed “Global Online Takeaway Group”, plans to further invest into product and technology. The company states it will also continue to focus on user experience, customer service and loyalty.

Announced: 03/12/15 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet Previous Investment: $108.0 million Founded: April 2012

Dianping Raises $850m. The Shanghai, China- based restaurant review and group buying app, The investment will push the company’s valuation to $4.05 billion, which is above its closest U.S. equivalent – Yelp. Dianping has more than 190 million monthly active users and over 60 million reviews of restaurants and other local businesses.

Announced: 03/12/15 Stage: Series E Valuation: $4.06 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Xiaomi Corp., FountainVest Partners, Temasek Holdings, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Wanda Group, Fosun Group Previous Investment: $162.3 million Founded: April 2003

Groupon India Raises $20m. The U.S.-based business has been exploring strategic options for its holdings in Asia, and Groupon India, which was born out of one of Groupon’s acquisition of SoSasta, has picked up outside investment. According to TechCrunch, the long-term strategy for Groupon India appears to be aimed at further separating itself from its parent company in the U.S. and growing more autonomous.

Announced: 03/10/2015 Stage: Venture Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital Founded: January 2011 (Date of Groupon’s acquisition of SoSatsa)

Innovative Food Holdings Raises $1.2m. The publicly-traded nationwide provider of specialty foods to the professional foodservice market, and the parent company of The Fresh Diet, a direct-to-consumer freshly prepared meal delivery company, announced it has closed a private placement of restricted shares. According to the release, the company plans to use the proceeds for the growth of The Fresh Diet and expansion opportunities in the Direct-to-Chef business segments.

Announced: 03/09/2015 Stage: Private Placement

PepperTap Raises $1.2m. The Gurgaon, India-based mobile application offers on-demand grocery delivery services. Rather than maintaining its own inventory, PepperTap focuses on facilitating orders and deliveries, and claims to ensure delivery within Gurgaon in less than two hours after customers place their order. The funding will be used to further develop the product, scale up the operations, grow its staff, and enhance offline and online brand visibility.

Announced: 02/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: November 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

Uber Partners with Chili’s to provide diners who use the Ziosk pay-at-the-table tablet a $20 credit for transportation.

Postmates Partners with Starbucks to deliver Starbucks products to customers who order through the Starbucks mobile app.

Sidecar Partners with Eat24 to offer delivery services using Sidecar’s network of drivers, who are currently engaged in the ride sharing service.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

Find value in this monthly roundup? Help us continue bringing you the news, insights and community you depend on by making a small contribution. Learn more HERE.

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: April 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

The food tech and media industry was quite active in April, especially as consolidation continued to heat up in the restaurant and food delivery sector; with eight of the eleven acquisitions within that category. With over $250 million invested across 15 private funding deals during the month, there was a solid mix across all stages but a heavier concentration of Series A deals (averaging $9 million in size). Notably, three quarters of the funding deals were international, with a majority of them in India.

While India has been seen as a huge growth market for U.S. companies in the consumer sector, home-grown entrepreneurs are increasingly seizing the opportunity. The food tech industry in particular has seen a recent boom, as the Indian publication Your Story notes, “the rise in consumerism, strong economic background, and relatively better incomes are encouraging Indians to eat out like never before.” In the same article, Kunal Walia from Khetal Advisors says, “Food-tech investments are a perfect follow-through to the recent theme of ‘Habit Forming Companies’ that have been attracting significant rounds of capital in recent times.”

The grocery delivery space in particular is an area of growth in India, with both ecommerce incumbents and startups paving the road. Amazon India recently announced it would be launching an express delivery platform in partnership with mom-and-pop stores, calling it Kirana Now and Snapdeal recently partnered with gourmet food retailer Godrej Nature’s Basket to sell its products online, with orders delivered the next day. Flipkart is now reportedly poised to begin selling groceries from the second half of this year, and is most likely to be launched as an in-house offering rather than through an acquisition, according to The Economic Times.

Kunal Walia further points to “one clear leader” in the Indian food tech space, Zomato, “[which] is pushing all the boundaries to build a high-value business.” Zomato however, despite the Indian headquarters, is increasingly focusing its attention and growth prospects internationally, including in the U.S., as Zomato’s CEO has stated that India represents only 8 % of market for the company. Regardless, with its significant funding, and global aspirations, Zomato will likely continue to be a major consolidator as startups in the sector face scaling challenges in acquiring consumers and business clients/partners. As we are already seeing in the U.S. and selectively abroad, the mass funding in this space will likely lead to consolidation, as happened in the e-commerce and daily deals space.

M&A

Kroger Acquires Assets of DunnhumbyUSA. British grocer Tesco’s customer data science and loyalty division Dunnhumby will transfer many of its US employees and data assets to Tesco’s US-based joint venture partner Kroger. According to Supermarket News, the new venture will be a long-term service license to use Dunnhumby’s technologies under a new business to be known as 84.51°. The agreement will lift restrictions on Dunnhumby pursuing business with additional U.S. retailers, and will no longer restrict Kroger from employing other firms to analyze its data. Stuart Aitken, who previously led DunnhumbyUSA, will become CEO of 84.51°. Dunnhumby itself has reportedly been on the market for several months as its parent company explores “strategic options.” AdExchanger reports that Goldman Sachs will continue the search for outside investment for dunnhumby ltd., now sans Kroger.

Announced04/27/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Joint Venture began in 2003

Zomato Acquires NexTable. The Charlotte, NC-based restaurant reservation and table management platform is Zomato’s second U.S. acquisition, as the company hopes to better monetize Zomato’s listings through reservation services. TechCrunch notes that NexTable, which will be relaunched as “Zomato Book,” may have been looking for an alternative exit path as a lack of outside funding and the headquarters location may have limited its ability to scale. Zomato will be taking NexTable’s technology internationally to India, UAE, and Australia.
Announced04/22/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: August 2012

Trimble Agriculture Solutions Acquires HarvestMark. Trimble, an agriculture solutions provider, acquired the assets of HarvestMark, a SaaS provider of food traceability and quality inspection solutions, from YottaMark, Inc. According to the release, the acquisition will help enhance Trimble’s position in agriculture and transportation and logistics within the food supply chain. Additionally, the CEO of YottaMark will join Trimble after the acquisition. Notably, HarvestMark had acquired Shopwell Solutions in 2013, however the Shopwell assets were not included in the sale.

Announced: 04/22/14 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $53.0m Founded: January 2005

Rocket Internet Acquires Volo. The Munich, Germany-based food-delivery startup allows customers to order food online from restaurants that don’t offer their own takeout and delivery services. Volo operates in key cities within Germany, and had announced plans to expand into nine other European countries. One would assume Volo will become part of Rocket Internet’s Global Online Takeaway Group, however TechCrunch notes that Rocket Internet’s competitive strategy is unclear given its recent funding of Volo’s competitor, Take It Easy, which operates in similar markets. Nevertheless, the acquisition suggests that Rocket Internet sees food delivery as a growth opportunity.

Announced04/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2014

Zomato acquires MaplePOS. The Delhi, India-based point-of-sale service for restaurants offers credit and debit card payment solutions, including menu and inventory management. The acquisition of the cloud-based payments platform marks Zomato’s first acquisition of a product outside of the restaurant search space. According to TechCrunch, adding a payments service will enable Zomato to increase its B2B offerings for restaurants. The Economic Times notes that technology has become increasingly integral to the online food services sector, and Zomato’s acquisition will enable the company to be more competitive in the market space. MaplePOS will be integrated with “Zomato Base”, Zomato’s own point-of-sale system.

Announced04/14/15 Terms: Undisclosed (cash and equity) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2011

Grofers Acquires Mygreenbox. The Gurgaon, India-based grocery delivery smartphone app delivers orders to users at their chosen time and location, and will give Grofers access to Mygreenbox’s client base, and also help it “to build technology for backend to further accelerate delivery.”Mygreenbox operates in the Gurgaon area and processes an average of 200 orders per day. Following the acquisition, the Mygreenbox business will shut down and be wholly integrated into to Grofers.

Announced04/10/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: April 2014

TripAdvisor Acquires BestTables. The Lisbon, Portugal-based online and mobile restaurant booking platform lets diners browse restaurants based on location, availability, price, cuisine type, and special offers before placing a reservation. BestTables will be integrated with TripAdvisor’s previous acquisition, TheFork (LaFourchette). As BestTables is partnered with 1200 restaurants in Portugal and Brazil, the acquisition will expand TripAdvisor’s European market and strengthen its presence in South America. As tnooz points out, the acquisition comes at a time where the market for restaurant reservations is in a period of consolidation.

Announced04/10/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2011

Square Acquires Fastbite. The San Francisco-based food delivery startup partners with restaurants to provide $10 meals that could be delivered in less than 10 minutes. As part of the deal, Fastbite will be integrated with Caviar, a food delivery company previously acquired by Square. The merged business will operate under the new name, Caviar Fastbite. According to Venturebeat, Caviar’s delivery infrastructure is geared towards upscale restaurants, so having Fastbite as a feature of Caviar will allow Caviar to tap into the lunch delivery business, while enabling Fastbite to be a stronger competitor in the industry. Fastbite currently only serves San Francisco, but may soon expand into other cities.
Announced04/08/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Reserve Acquires zurvu. The New York-based mobile waitlist startup charges users a fee in exchange for securing reservations at in-demand restaurants. Users can book publicly available or exclusively held tables using the zurvu’s waitlist technology. Reserve plans to incorporate zurvu’s services into its existing service and technology. The acquisition will allow Reserve to expand into Philadelphia as well as increase its restaurant base in NYC.

Announced04/07/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $1.2m Founded: 2012

Reserve Acquires HAIL. The Santa Monica-based payment technology platform offers bill splitting services for users. The app additionally calculates the tip and lets diners electronically hail their servers. According to the release, HAIL’s features will be integrated into the Reserve app and will further streamline Reserve’s payment services.

Announced04/07/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Weight Watchers Acquires Weilos. The San Francisco-based mobile platform for fitness and weight loss focuses on introducing social media to users’ weight loss and fitness journeys, which will enhance the social networking and community capabilities of the Weight Watchers program. The acquisition will also “accelerate product and technology development” for the Weight Watchers platform. The startup lets users document and share their weight loss progress through selfies via a picture taking app, discuss weight loss and fitness goals, and track food intake and activity. TechCrunch reports that the average person posting progress pictures on Weilos loses 1.2 pounds per week, whereas the average Weight Watchers user loses .27 pounds per week.

Announced04/06/15 Terms: “Single millions” Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

FUNDING

Keru Cloud Raises $10.7m. The China-based restaurant management software company aims to be an “all-in-one solution for restaurants and other businesses to go digital.” Restaurant staff can use Keru Cloud’s mobile platform to manage reservations, orders, and customer loyalty programs. Online, Keru Cloud’s mobile app lets client restaurants offer maps, menus, special discounts, and online ordering services from their individualized digital storefronts. Keru Cloud will use the capital injection to enter into more service sectors, invest in product development, and expand its sales and operations teams.

Announced: 04/24/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Baidu (lead), Tianxing Capital (lead), Fangjinglin Investment, Kaixing Capital Previous Investment: Series A Amount Not Disclosed Founded: November 2012

EazyDiner Raises Seed Funding. The Delhi, India-based restaurant reservation dining platform offers users reviews, recommendations, insiders’ advice, concierge services, and manages each reservation. EasyDiner currently operates in the Delhi region, where it has over 8,000 listings, and partners with nearly 300 restaurants for online reservation and exclusive deals. The startup plans to launch its services in Mumbai by July, and expand operations into Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai within this year.

Announced: 04/23/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Bring! Raises Seed Funding. The Zurich, Switzerland-based grocery shopping list app is focused on user experience, with an icon-based catalogue. Lists can be shared with several people and are automatically synced to ensure efficient planning and shopping. Using icons instead of text, the company aims to offer a similar user experience on both smartphones and smartwatches, including the new Apple Watch.

Announced: 04/21/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

Sprig Raises $45m. The San Francisco-based subscription food delivery service makes and delivers locally sourced meals to customers in the area. The company’s goal is to deliver organic and ready-to-eat meals in an average of 20 minutes after ordering. To keep its delivery time short, Sprig uses data technology to predict times of incoming orders and sends out delivery vehicles in advance of orders placed by customers. Sprig intends to use the new capital to expand its service to cities across the country, with the rest of the Bay Area and Chicago as its immediate targets.

Announced: 04/15/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Social Capital (lead), Greylock Partners (lead), Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, 500 Startups, Ludlow Ventures, Lumia Capital, IDG Ventures, CAA Ventures, Previous Investment: $11.7 million Founded: April 2013

Grofers Raises $35m. The Gurgaon, India-based online mobile delivery app delivers produce and other goods from local stores on-demand. Grofers does not hold inventory, and currently partners with 400 merchants who list products on the app. According to TechCrunch, orders placed through Grofers’ platform have tripled over March. The company intends to use the capital to increase product offerings and expand into other areas of India.

Announced: 04/14/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Previous Investment: $10.5 million Founded: December 2013

Hello Alfred Raises $10.5m. The New York-based home management service partners with on-demand services to complete household customers’ chores, including groceries and laundry. Each user is assigned a home manager, called an Alfred, who takes care of chores so that users won’t have to manage multiple services themselves. Customers have the options of signing up for weekly automated chores or texting in requests. Hello Alfred currently operates in New York and Boston. The new funding will be used to scale Hello Alfred’s services and broaden its consumer base.

Announced: 04/14/15 Valuation: $33 million Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: New Enterprise Associates (lead), Spark Capital (lead), Sherpa Ventures, CrunchFund Previous Investment: $2 million Founded: September 2013

PepperTap Raises $10m. Just a month after announcing its Seed round, the Gurgaon, India-based on-demand grocery delivery services app announced a sizable Series A, which will allow the company to expand into 10 more cities in India by the end of the year. Rather than maintaining its own inventory, PepperTap creates online catalogs for stock from local retailers, and claims to ensure delivery within Gurgaon in less than two hours after customers place their order.

Announced: 04/14/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: $1.2 million Founded: November 2014

Take Eat Easy Raises $6.4m. The Brussels, Belgium-based online and mobile platform markets itself as an on-demand food delivery for “trendy” restaurants that do not have traditional delivery services. TechCrunch reports that Take Eat Easy employs bike couriers to make the deliveries, a feature which makes the company both a logistics and a food ordering business. Customers can track their orders in real time, and the estimated time of delivery for each restaurant is continually updated. Take Eat Easy currently operates in France and Belgium, and will use the funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe.

Announced: 04/14/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet, DN Capital, Piton Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

TouchBistro Raises $6m. The Toronto-based startup is a provider of mobile point-of-sale solutions and digital menus for the food and drink industry. Restaurants use TouchBistro’s software for the iPad to take and process orders, split bills, and email receipts. Clients include food trucks, bars, and coffee shops as well as traditional restaurants. TouchBistro reported that it recently surpassed $1 billion in transactions through its point-of-sale system, and was the top grossing food and beverage app in the iTunes store in 33 countries in 2014. The new funding will be used towards hiring staff and global expansion initiatives.

Announced: 4/14/15  Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Kensington Capital Partners, Relay Ventures, Difference Capital, JUST EAT Previous Investment: $6 million  Founded: 2010

Zomato Raises $50m. The Gurgaon, India-based restaurant search and discovery app allows users to see restaurant information, scan menus, follow food critics, and create personal food diaries. Having used most of its capital raised from the previous round to acquire Urbanspoon, Zomato now seeks to expand into related businesses, and is working on enabling consumers to order food from its website. As seen by its activity in the M&A section of this report, Zomato is attempting to build up the B2B aspect of its business.

Announced: 04/14/15 Valuation: Reportedly between $800 million and $1 billion Stage: Series F Participating Institutional Investors: Info Edge (lead), VY Capital, Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: $113.8 million Founded: August 2008

ZopNow raises $10m. The Bangalore, India-based online delivery portal sells a range of products, including groceries. The company sources its products from the supermarket chain, HyperCity, and claims to be able to deliver goods within 3 hours. Additionally, customers can use ZopNow’s program to track the location of their orders. ZopNow will use the capital for new hires and enhancing the technology platform, as well as expansion into more cities.

Announced: 4/13/15  Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Dragoneer Investment Group (lead), Times Internet, Qualcomm Ventures, Accel Partners Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: September 2011

Meican Raises $22.6m. The Beijing-based online food ordering service operates in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Unlike some of its competitors, Meican’s target clients are enterprises that cater for employees. Tech In Asia notes that Meican’s funding “comes as China’s online food delivery sector finally heats up after a lukewarm start.” Meican intends to use the funds to expand into 30 more cities.

Announced: 04/08/15 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Dianping (lead), Nokia Growth Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Trust Bridge Partners Previous Investment: $13 million Founded: 2010

HotSchedules Raises $20m. The Austin-based hospitality software company (formerly named Red Book Connect) produces mobile, cloud-based technology aimed at improving flexibility and work-life balance for employees in the restaurant, retail, and hospitality industries. Its flagship product of the same name is an employee scheduling and labor management software. HotSchedules also recently expanded its product suite also includes Josabi, a referral-based recruiting tool, and Bodhi, a data integration and delivery tool. The company claims to have a user base of more than 1.8 million in 26 countries. Funding will be used towards product development and sales and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 04/06/15 Stage: Growth Equity Participating Institutional Investors: Bridge Capital Holdings Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 1999

Swiggy Raises $2m. The Bangalore, India-based food delivery mobile app accepts orders from users and employs personnel to pick up and deliver food from restaurants to the customers’ doorsteps. The company claims its routing algorithm can ensure delivery in less than 35 minutes, and has made 30,000 deliveries in the Bangalore area. Swiggy will use the capital injection to expand into Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

Announced: 04/03/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Accel Partners, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: August 2014

Tapingo Raises $22m. The San Francisco-based mobile food ordering platform enables location-aware discovery for consumers and immediate order fulfillment through operational integration for merchants. Currently, the service is live on 84 college campuses. Tapingo’s partner institutions provide hubs where students can pick up and pay for food using the company’s mobile app. Now the company is looking to expand beyond college campuses into other verticals including hospitals and corporations. Tapingo will use the new funding towards off-campus expansion in addition to product development, operations, and marketing.

Announced: 04/02/15  Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Qualcomm (lead), Carmel Ventures, DCM Ventures, Kinzon Capital, Khosla Ventures Previous Investment: $14 million  Founded: January 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

AmEx partners with Jawbone to offer mobile payments services through users’ fitness trackers.

Chipotle Partners with Postmates to launch delivery services in 67 cities in the U.S.

Zomato Partners with Uber to enable customers to book cabs to the restaurants at which they plan to dine.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

Love this monthly roundup? Help us continue bringing you the news, insights and community you depend on by making a small contribution. Learn more HERE.

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: April 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: June 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

There were a ton deals in June, with eleven acquisitions (mainly small) and sixteen fundraises (all shapes and sizes), rounding out to over $460 million of global investment into the food tech and media space. As we have been seeing for a while now, delivery and online ordering were represented in spades, but we also saw an influx of digital content deals – ranging from recipes to restaurants – which hasn’t been the case in a while. The average size between the Series A and Series B rounds was $9.4 million, and, signaling that sectors within this industry are increasingly crossing the threshold into the growth equity category, there were five deals sized over $20 million.

While we are far from IPO-mania, the industry is very rapidly accumulating well-capitalized players, and new talk of IPOs among pure-play food tech companies has begun to surface (vs. tech incumbents with a wider focus like Yelp, Coupons.com, Groupon, etc.).

As Delivery Hero padded up with $110 million from “leading public market investors” in June, some have speculated it may be the company’s last private round ahead of going public. Also from the Rocket Internet portfolio, it has been reported that HelloFresh may be considering an initial public offering this year and is in dialogue with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs about advising. On the (much) smaller side of the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal noted that TabbedOut’s recent funding in June would “be its final funding round before going public,” however it is unclear if that would be a near-term event (I would be surprised if that is the case). And while not a pure play food tech company, Square has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO, which could provide additional acquisition currency to layer in additional services within the local SMB market, many of which are restaurants and food retailers.

In the beginning of 2014 I framed the expansion into the public markets as a “rising tide” phenomenon for startups, in that investors will continue to increase their stake into this sector as the opportunity for successful exits (via acquisition) are more prominent.  However now that the industry has begun to mature, there is substantially more buy-in from investors, consumers and businesses on the food tech space.

And as we are now witnessing, great success is no longer necessarily tied to riding on a larger tech company’s coattails – which is quite a shift in dynamics from even 18 months ago. Acquisitions will still be a critical component to a thriving ecosystem however, as many of the current products and technologies – especially those focused on fragmented markets – may find they can create the most impact by joining a larger platform with more substantial resources.

M&A

Love With Food Acquires Taste Guru. The Denver-based gluten-free subscription box service delivers to customers a monthly box of gluten free snacks, and will enable Love With Food to expand its customers and offerings in the growing market. Taste Guru is the second gluten-free themed acquisition in the past year by Love With Food, a snack discovery service focusing on organic, all-natural products.

Announced: 06/24/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $120k Founded: July 2012

Deliv Acquires WeDeliver. The Chicago-based same day delivery platform, which provides delivery local services for over 100 Chicago-area companies, will help Deliv compete in the same-day delivery space as it continues towards national expansion. Following the acquisition, WeDeliver’s brand will be discontinued as its merchants – including grocery and food retailers – and “delivery specialists” transition to Deliv’s platform. As I have discussed a number of times, The Chicago Tribune notes that as the same-day delivery space continues to heat up with both small and large participants (including Amazon, Google and Postmates), consolidation appears to be an obvious next step.

Announced: 06/24/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $800k Founded: January 2013

Hello Curry Acquires Fire42. The Hyderabad, India-based restaurant management platform provides restaurants with inventory management, order management, trend tracking, loyalty and billing services, among other tools, and will allow Hello Curry to introduce real-time analytics and point of sale (POS) services to Hello Curry’s technology as it gears towards expansion. Medianama reports that it is unclear whether Fire42 will continue to offer its services independently.

Announced: 06/22/15 Terms: Stock and cash Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

Farmhouse Delivery Acquires Bento Picnic. The Austin-based startup prepares lunchbox meal kits modeled after the bento tradition of Japanese homemakers and will enable Farmhouse Delivery, which provides in-state groceries, to expand its brand beyond grocery delivery and cater to customers such as local office workers.

Announced: 06/19/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

Groupon acquires Venuelabs. The Seattle-based provider of location-based monitoring, measurement and engagement solutions allows local retailers to examine aggregated social media chatter about their businesses across dozens of platforms, including Foursquare, Twitter or Instagram. With the acquisition, Groupon will integrate Venuelab’s technology into its “Pages” service, where customers visiting Groupon can find information about the merchant.

Announced: 06/18/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $2.6 million Founded: March 2009

Cookpad acquires Cucumbertown. The Mountain View, CA and Bangalore-based recipes blog publishing network enables users to host their own food blogs, engage with fans, build an identity and, with the acquisition, hopes to help them monetize their recipes. The acquisition by the Tokyo-based recipe network Cookpad will enable Cucumbertown to expand to international markets and monetize the business through a “Tumbler model” of personalized themes and domains. The Economic Times further reports that Cucumbertown and Cookpad will work together on building a global culinary map.

Announced: 06/16/15 Terms: “Multi-millionsPrevious Investment: $300k Founded: October 2012

Tasting Table Acquires Flavour. The New York-based restaurant discovery app which mines social graph data to find noteworthy restaurants in addition to collecting reviews from critics, bloggers, and industry experts, will help Tasting Table provide restaurant recommendations that are more personalized and curated. Users can search by city, by collection, or by dish, and make reservations through a connection with OpenTable. Flavour is available in eight cities, and Tasting Table plans to collaborate with Flavour’s team of developers, engineers, and designers to enrich user experience through expanding the app’s services.

Announced: 06/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $1.1 million Founded: 2014

BigBasket Acquires Delyver. The Bangalore-based hyper local ecommerce platform. which uses its own logistics technology to connect offline retailers to customers in the neighborhood, will manage BigBasket’s new launch of one-hour delivery service in Bangalore. Delyver will retain its brand name and function as an independent entity. In addition, BigBasket will provide funds for Delyver to expand into eight major cities and 50 tier-II cities, and increase team size in existing cities.

Announced: 06/12/15 Terms: cash and stock Previous Investment: $1 million Founded: March 2010

Brit + Co Acquires Snapguide. The San Francisco-based publishing system lets people create step-by-step mobile guides, and will be renamed as “Snapguide by Brit + Co.” Brit + Co, an online lifestyle and e-commerce platform focusing on DIY, plans to use content from the acquisition to build out its platform. TechCrunch reports the acquisition is an asset sale, covering the Snapguide’s website and app, its user network, DIY guides, and technology platform.

Announced: 06/09/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $10 million Founded: 2011

Fexy Media Acquires Roadfood.com and SeriousEats. According to the New York Times, Fexy Media launched in 2014 and is making acquisitions as part of its broader strategy to become a force in the digital food media space. Fexy has plans to re-energize the Roadfood.com, which features regional and small town highway eateries across America, to boost its appeal to the younger generation. The core offering of Serious Eats won’t be changed beyond increasing its video content, as the acquisition will provide Serious Eats with new technology to bolster its digital video offering and opportunities for partnership with Fexy’s other portfolio companies.

Announced: 06/02/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Roadfood.com: 2000; Serious Eats: 2006

FUNDING

MangoPlate raises $6.1m. The Seoul-based mobile application for personalized dining recommendations features restaurant reviews and pictures crowdsourced from real users. Using algorithms and location data, MangoPlate generates customized restaurant recommendations and restaurant deals based on a user’s whereabouts and cuisine preference. The company aims to double the restaurants it captures in Korea from 40 percent to 80 percent and roll out money making features, such as enabling restaurant owners to provide targeted deals to consumers who have shown interest in their restaurants. Funding will also be used to test overseas markets.

Announced: 06/30/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Qualcomm Ventures (lead), SoftBank Ventures Korea, YJ Capital Previous Investment: $900k Founded: April 2013

Bento Raises $1.5m. The San Francisco-based on-demand food delivery service specializes in delivering Asian food. Customers can choose from a menu of meals and have the option of specifying low-carb or gluten-free selections. To ensure quick delivery, Bento delivers curbside only. TechCrunch notes that Bento has seen 15 percent growth per week, and plans to expand its service into East Bay.

Announced: 06/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: LAUNCH Fund (lead), Slow Ventures, 500 Startups Mobile Collective fund, FundersClub Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2015

Postmates Raises $80m. The San Francisco-based online delivery service is a developer of consumer-facing logistics software that dispatches and guides couriers through major metropolitan areas to deliver local goods including prepared food, groceries, and retail goods. The company currently operates across 28 different markets and has reportedly surpassed 2.5 million deliveries. TechCrunch reports that while one weakness of Postmates has been its high delivery costs, which ranges from $5 to $20, the company has addressed the problem somewhat through its newly launched Postmates Merchant Program, which charges a flat $4.99 delivery fee for over a thousand partner restaurants. To further undercut its rivals, Postmates plans to roll out a new service in August that will charge customers around $1 for deliveries of food and other goods to high-density zip codes at peak times. The company will also use the funding to move into a range of other areas of delivery, including groceries and healthcare and beauty products.

Announced: 06/25/2015 Valuation: $400 million to $500 million Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: Tiger Global Management (lead), Slow Ventures, Spark Capital Previous Investment: $58.0 million Founded: May 2011

VenueNext Raises $9m. The Palo Alto-based app for venues is designed to help attendees and operators at live events by connecting to the venue’s food and retail POS systems, e-ticketing solution, and parking pass validation systems, to offer live, in-app content for fans at the stadium. The VenueNext technology is available for licensing and provides both a customized guest-facing app and a backend platform for the venue to use. The company has had its first rollout at Levi’s Stadium, which sold $1.25 million of snacks and merchandise and experienced a 30 percent app adoption rate. VenueNext is expected to expand in 30 venues by the end of the year, going beyond sports stadiums to other venues, such as hotels.

Announced: 06/24/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Causeway Media Partners (lead), Live Nation Labs, Twitter Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Kitchenbowl Raises $1.3m. The Seattle-based startup describes itself as a community in which users can share and discover recipes. The platform aims to reinvent the recipe format to make it accessible to millennial users, emphasizing the use of photos in teaching users to cook. GeekWire reports that the average recipe contributor has uploaded about five recipes with six to nine photos. The capital injection will be used to help Kitchenbowl grow its team and platform.

Announced: 06/22/2015 Stage: Angel Participating Angel Investors: Jon Staenberg, Kurt Dammeier, Bill Moore, Scott Svenson Previous Investment: $1.0 million Founded: 2013

Offpeak Raises $800k. The Selangor, Malaysia based-restaurant booking and discovery platform startup focuses on helping restaurants get reservations during off peak hours. Available as iOS and Android apps, Offpeak offers recommendations based on a user’s location, and enables users to book tables at discount with as little as 10 minutes advanced notice. The capital will be used for expansion into other Southeast markets starting with Bangkok, establishment of local teams, and strengthening its marketing signal.

Announced: 06/22/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Gobi Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

HolaChef Raises $3.1m. The Mumbai-based web and mobile app for food delivery offers users a different menu from which to choose food every day. Professional and amateur chefs can sell meals once approved by the company, which will then package and deliver the food. HolaChef is currently serving 1000 orders a day, and plans to use the funds to set up a central kitchen and invest in modern infrastructure, technology and delivery.

Announced: 06/20/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Kalaari Capital (Lead), India Quotient Previous Investment: $320k Founded: 2014

La Ruche qui dit Oui Raises $9m. The Paris-based startup makes it possible for consumers to buy directly from local farmers and foodmakers at nearby “ruches.” The company employs independent contractors as ruche managers to facilitate the local marketplace. TechCrunch notes that because vendors set their own prices and receive 80 percent of the proceeds from sales, prices are competitive without being a “race to the bottom.” There are currently over 600 ruches in France, and the company additionally operates in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Funding will be used to solidify existing markets.

Announced: 06/16/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Felix Capital (Lead), Union Square Ventures (Lead), Quadia, XAnge Private Equity Previous Investment: $4.1 million Founded: 2011

FoodAbhi Raises Seed Funding. The Mumbai-based online tiffin marketplace aims to distinguish itself by catering to both daily and on-demand meals. The company currently partners with over 30 vendors, which are listed free of charge on the company website, and has delivered over 15,000 meals. To ensure quality, FoodAbhi packages meals itself and organizes surprise audits to check on hygiene, ingredients used. The company will use the funding to expand its technology and its scale, with plans to build apps that track deliveries and vendor activities. FoodAbhi additionally plans to expand into Pune, Bangalore, and eventually Delhi.

Announced: 06/15/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Lavu Raises $15m. The Albuquerque-based provider of point of sales systems for restaurants is currently being used by over 4,000 restaurants in 86 countries. Lavu’s system can track sales and is customizable for coffee shops, food trucks, bars, and nightclubs. As with other next generation POS services, Lavu asserts that its services are less expensive than those of traditional POS systems, which can charge tens of thousands of dollars up front. The capital will be used towards sales and marketing.

Announced: 06/15/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Aldrich Capital Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed million Founded: 2010

Blue Apron Raises $135m. The New York-based meal delivery service company packages a recipe and pre-portioned ingredients that are delivered to customers’ homes on a weekly basis. In the past six months, Blue Apron has tripled its volume and is selling 3 million meals per month. Blue Apron will use the funding to scale its growing network of farms, suppliers, and fulfillment capabilities throughout the country, and has plans to invest in automation and add custom fulfillment software tools, enabling the company to reach home chefs in over 99% of the continental United States.

Announced: 06/09/2015 Valuation: $2 billion Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: Fidelity Investments (Lead), Bessemer Venture Partners, BoxGroup, Stripes Group Previous Investment: $58 million Founded: 2012

Swiggy Raises $16.5m. The Bangalore, India-based food delivery mobile app accepts orders from users and employs personnel to pick up and deliver food from restaurants to customers’ doorsteps. After a recent close of $2 million in April, the current funding will be used towards expansion into other cities in India and strengthening of its brand platform. By employing its own delivery fleet, Swiggy does not have an order minimum and offers users with multiple payment options. TechCrunch notes that, as one of 14 grocery delivery startups based in India, Swiggy has seen 10x growth in order numbers in recent months and distinguishes itself with its provision of a curated list of restaurants and ensured delivery time.

Announced: 06/09/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Norwest Venture Partners (lead), Accel Partners, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: $2.0 million Founded: August 2014

Delivery Hero Raises $110m. The Berlin-based network of online food ordering sites now features a network of 200,000 restaurants across 34 countries. Over 10 million orders each month are processed by Delivery Hero, which generates $165 million in monthly sales. The capital infusion will be used “for selective acquisitions and intensive product innovation.” TechCrunch reports that this could suggest further expansion into other countries, as well as other food product markets, such as meal kits, grocery delivery, or high end restaurant delivery.

Announced: 06/07/2015 Valuation: $3.1 billion Stage: Private Equity  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed (“leading public market investors”) Previous Investment: $1.3 billion  Founded: September 2010

TabbedOut Raises $21.5m. The Austin-based mobile payment app is currently installed in over 10,000 venues in the U.S. and allows patrons to open, review, and securely pay their tab. Restaurants and bars can use TabbedOut to track and use customer baskets and behavior to create comprehensive consumer databases that offer actionable insights into their customer’s spending habits. Proceeds from the round will be used to accelerate user acquisition through the implementation of automated loyalty and rewards programs, integration with other mobile consumer services, and expansion into 20 new U.S. markets.

Announced: 06/04/2015 Valuation: $78 million Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Wellington Management Company (lead), New Enterprise Associates, Morgan Creek Capital Management Previous Investment: $17.5 million Founded: June 2009

EatTreat Raises $350k. The New Delhi-based social media platform for food lovers started out as a Facebook group focused on recipes, restaurant reviews, articles on cookbooks, and other food related content. With seed funding to build the website and make key hires to bolster company infrastructure, EatTreat will soon launch its independent web and mobile platforms which connect end users with service providers. EatTreat will feature new innovations in food, and aims to generate dialogue among foodies and revenues through advertisement.

Announced: 06/01/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Divitas Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

iFood Raises $50m. The São Paulo-based food delivery company enables users to order food through its website and mobile apps. Through iFood’s platform, users can consult restaurant menus and prices and select the desired delivery location to make their purchase. TechCrunch notes that Brazil is experiencing 21% year over year growth, making it the leader in the burgeoning space of Latin American e-commerce services. iFood captures 80 percent of the online restaurant delivery market and expects to hit one million deliveries per month by the end of 2015. Funding will be used towards growth in new cities and continued development of its team and infrastructure.

Announced: 06/01/2015 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Just Eat, Movile Previous Investment: $11.9 million Founded: May 2011

PARTNERSHIPS

Jawbone Partners with Yummly to help users to be informed about their daily food intake via UP devices.

Men’s Health Partners with Chef’d to bring Men’s Health branded meals to consumers’ homes.

DoorDash Partners with Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to deliver prepared foods, including sandwiches and wraps.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

Love this monthly roundup? Please consider contributing, so we can keep bringing you the news, insights and community you depend on.

 

support-food-tech-connect 

 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: June 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: July 2015

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This is a monthly guest post, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, which highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

July was exceptionally active on the fundraising front compared to last year, with 23 deals totaling $318 million* in 2015 compared to just $75 million over 10 deals last year during the same month. This cash influx continued to fuel the progression towards a maturing industry, with about a third of all the deals (globally), and half of U.S. deals, sized at least $20 million.

On the other end of the spectrum, three of the ten seed stage deals were based in the U.S., averaging $2.1 million per deal, while the remaining international seed deals were primarily based in India, averaging $300k per deal.

M&A activity for the month included four acquisitions of undisclosed value, which is less substantial than last year due to a remarkable month in 2014 (six transaction totaling over $660 million in July 2014). I don’t think this signals any major shift in the strategic market. Quite the contrary in fact, as I have mentioned a number of times, I believe we are in store for some significant consolidation in the coming year.

As has been the case seemingly every month, delivery was dominant, with 61% of deals (and 66% of cash) invested into on-demand or convenience-economy concepts, mainly around the meal and restaurant category. The remaining majority of deals were also focused on the restaurant category, ranging from reviews to loyalty and marketing to payment.

*Excludes CircleUp’s new $22 million growth fund, as those funds did not go towards the company.

M&A

Benseron IT acquires Restajet.com. Benseron IT, a developer of POS systems, will integrate the Naples, Florida-based provider of custom Android and iOS apps for restaurants with its Bevo POS system in order to futher streamline the order process. RestaJet’s apps offer reservation services, customer feedback, and push notification features, as well as online ordering capabilities for franchises.

Announced: 07/23/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Groupon Acquires OrderUp. The Baltimore, MD-based online and mobile food ordering and delivery service will bring expertise in food ordering and delivery to Groupon, and significantly boost its presence in the $70 billion sector by creating “an online and mobile food ordering marketplace of significant size and scale” while also providing opportunities for inventory cross-promotion, according to the Company. As TechCrunch notes, Groupon’s reach and ability to meet demand at large scales will enable OrderUp to grow at an accelerated pace and further expand in targeted markets. OrderUp is currently available in 40 markets throughout the U.S., focusing on those with high student populations.

Announced: 07/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $10.0m  Founded: September 2009

Private Investors Acquire Yeti. The Los Angeles-based local discovery app fosters conversation with a local focus. Nicknamed the “Tinder for places,” Yeti presents users with a series of photo cards with topics based on their location, giving users the option to swipe left to pass on a topic or swipe right to join in on a conversation. According to LA Business Journal, Yeti faced the choice to try to raise a large funding round to acquire more users or seek acquisition. The company stated that is decided to sell to a small group of private investors (JA Partners and Edgewater Ventures) so that it can continue to develop and retain the original mission of the app versus likely sunsetting the app if it were acquired by a larger tech company. Yeti will operate under a new CEO following the acquisition, and may develop more curated local recommendations.

Announced: 07/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $875k Founded: June 2014

Meredith Acquires Grocery Server (Qponix). The Bainbridge Island, WA-based search and shopping engine, which targets customers using hyperlocal digital advertising for consumer packaged goods and grocery retail outlets, is part of Meredith’s strategy to drive digital and cross-platform growth, particularly withing the AllRecipes platform. Grocery Server, which has been a client of Meredith’s for some time, developed its technology in response to the shifting behaviors of mobile-equipped, value-minded shoppers and delivers product offers using shoppers’ recent mobile activity. The women’s interest publisher Meredith has used Grocery Server’s services in the past year, and as part of the acquisition, Grocery Server will supply Meredith with grocery data as well as nearly 150,000 monthly localized advertising specials in every residential zip code in the US.

Announced: 07/13/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: August 2010 (as joint venture between Qponix and MyGroceryDeals.com)

FUNDING

Noodle Play raises $160k. The Mumbai-based online ordering startup serves delivery-only Chinese food made in its own kitchens and guarantees delivery within 29 minutes. The brand is owned by Lollypop Foods Pvt Ltd and currently operates in five locations in Mumbai. Noodle Play will use the capital injection to expand its delivery service and has plans to open delivery outposts in over 50 locations in Mumbai by 2016. Eventually, the company plans to expand its services into other metropolitan areas.

Announced: 07/31/2015 Stage: Angel Participating Angel Investors: Gautam Sinha, Elliot Stechman, Ambarish Ray Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

GoButler Raises $8m. The New York-based on-demand startup offers a free, SMS-based personal concierge. Users can text the company to request a variety of services including food delivery, travel bookings and restaurant reservations. Customers’ ordering history and preferences are attached to their profile so that GoButler personal assistants, called Heroes, can see their preferences and use existing on-demand apps and e-commerce sites to provide its service. The company, founded by former Rocket Internet executives, believes its free service differentiates it from competitors and plans to make a profit by building an advertising network around customer data. The service is currently available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The capital injection will be used towards to fund a marketing campaign.

Announced: 07/30/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: General Catalyst Partners (lead), BoxGroup, Cherry Ventures, Lakestar, Global Founders Capital, Slow Ventures, Sound Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: February 2015

Thrive Market Raises $30m. The Los Angeles-based wholesale buying club for health-conscious products operates like a hybrid of Whole Foods and Costco. For a $60 annual membership fee, users can access natural or organic products across a variety of verticals, such as food, home goods, and baby supplies at or below the price of the conventional equivalent. In the first eight months from launch, the company gained over 100,000 active members, 1,000,000 registered users, and generated $5mm in monthly sales. The company has also partnered with a number of non-profits to offer free memberships to families in need for every paid membership on the platform. Thrive Market will use the funding to expand its operations, with the opening of a new distribution center on the East Coast and developing its mobile app.

Announced: 07/30/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Greycroft (lead), Scripps Network, CAVU, Powerplant Ventures Previous Investment: $9 million Founded: 2013

Delight Foods Raises $156k. The Bangalore-based food startup enables users to purchase famous Indian food brands from across the country. The venture works with over 60 brands sourced from 11 cities, allowing customers have delicacies particular to a city delivered to their homes. The venture is logistics heavy, and has packing centers in all the cities in which it operates. Funding will be used to make new hires, enter into new food categories, expand its location, and launch a marketing campaign in Bangalore.

Announced: 07/27/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: MAPE Advisory Group, Fireside Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: December 2014

ShopKeep Raises $60m. The New York-based point-of-sale solution builds point-of-sale software for mobile devices and tablets. The company’s platform additionally offers customer marketing, inventory and staff management, back-end reporting and detailed analytics. The Wall Street Journal attributes the traction tablet-based point-of-sales systems are gaining to the proliferation of broadband internet that makes cloud software available at merchant locations. ShopKeep will use the funding towards growing its overall customer base in the US, strengthening industry partnerships, and launch international operations, starting with the UK.

Announced: 07/28/15 Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: Activant Capital Previous Investment: $37.5 million Founded: October 2008

Deliveroo Raises $70m. The London-based restaurant delivery service focuses on marketing, selling and delivering meals from premium restaurants that do not usually offer takeout. Deliveroo targets affluent cities with high population density and an abundance of restaurants, currently serving 18 cities and towns across the UK as well as Paris, Berlin, and Dublin. Funding will be used towards expansion into new cities in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, marketing on the internet, billboard, and TV, in addition to hiring managing and product engineering staff.

Announced: 07/27/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Greenoaks Capital (Lead), Index Ventures (Lead), Accel Partners, Hoxton Ventures Previous Investment: $29.6 million Founded: February 2013

Homer Logistics Raises $2m. The New York-based food delivery service for restaurants combines orders that originate in the same area and that head in the same direction to eliminate empty-handed return trips and make delivery more efficient. Additionally, Homer Logistics provides software to restaurants to receive and analyze incoming orders from a variety of platforms. The company reports that is has completed over 6,000 orders in Manhattan in June 2015.

Announced: 07/21/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, Vayner RSE, Rugged VC, Haystack Fund II Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Flypay raises $10.7m. The London-based mobile payment startup allows users to check, split and pay their restaurant bill from their smartphones by scanning an on-table QR code/NFC tag to pull up the bill. Since its launch, Flypay has added other solutions catering to the hospitality industry, including order and collect, order at table, pay at bar, and customer loyalty features. Notably, TimeOut – a media brand – appears to be positioning itself as a strategic investor, calling itself a “global multimedia discovery platform”, with plans to help enable global deployment of Flypay’s solution.

Announced: 07/16/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: TimeOut Previous Investment: $1.9m Founded: February 2013

Plated Raises $35m. The New York-based subscription service for ready-to-cook meal ingredients and recipes markets itself as a premium meal kit delivery service. Plated distinguishes itself by offering sustainably sourced goods, with a slightly higher price-point per meal than competitors. To that end, Plated has invested in farming and transportation to ensure that its products are sustainably produced and shipped in sustainable packaging as well as mobile technology. Funding will be used to develop a low-waste supply chain and new regional fulfillment centers.

Announced: 07/16/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Greycroft Partners, Formation 8 Previous Investment: $21.4 million Founded: January 2012

Main Street Hub Raises $25. The Austin, TX-based marketing platform for small-businesses uses data and analytics to help merchants acquire and maintain customers. The company’s “do-it-for you” local marketing platform offers an integrated social, web, and email marketing solution designed to help local restaurants and merchants drive more customers. The funding will provide the company with resources to grow, and facilitate the introduction of new products and addition of 300 employees in its Austin, TX, and New York offices by the end of 2015.

Announced: 07/16/15 Valuation: $216 million Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Vista Equity Partners Previous Investment: $40.9 million Founded: June 2009

Freshly Raises $7m. The New York-based meal delivery service offers meals inspired by the paleo diet. The meals are prepared by chefs employed by Freshly and then packaged and delivered to customers. The company primarily delivers in Arizona and California, and has shipped over 200,000 in its first five months of operation. Funding will be used for expansion to cover 80% of the country with new production and logistics facilities.

Announced: 07/15/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors Highland Capital Partners (lead), White Star Capital Previous Investment: $2.0 million Founded: 2012

Spoon University Raises $2m. The New York based food network for millennials offers localized and more general stories about food, wellness, and lifestyle. Content on the website is produced by college students, who volunteer to share recipes, health and lifestyle stories, restaurant reviews, BuzzFeed-esque quizzes, and other food-related content. The website has a national page as well as individualized verticals for participating college campuses. Spoon University is different from similar platforms in that members who want to contribute content receive training in writing headlines, using Facebook to promote their content, and managing analytics tools to see how well their contributions are performing. Funding will be used towards expanding its network of contributors and creating more video content.

Announced: 07/14/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: BBG Ventures, BoxGroup Partners, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Math Venture Partners, SoftTech VC, Vayner/RSE Previous Investment: $500k Founded: September 2013

Satvacart Raises Seed Funding. The Gurgaon-based grocery delivery startup offers over 4,000 curated products across grocery, fruits and vegetables, personal care, household essentials, and baby care through its online platform. Satvacart plans to use the funding to scale up its operations and expand into six new cities by the end of the fiscal year.

Announced: 07/14/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors Palaash Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Zesty Raises $17m. The San Francisco-based office catering service differentiates itself by delivering meals from local restaurants cooked in a more health conscious way or created off-menu. Meals come with ingredients and nutrition facts, and Zesty works with restaurants to ensure that meals do not contain added sugar or MSG. In return for handling all the logistics of delivery and scheduling for the restaurants, and Zesty receives a fraction of the catering revenue. Zesty will use the investment to fund expansion into new markets.

Announced: 07/14/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Index Ventures (lead), Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures Previous Investment: $3.7 million Founded: November 2013

CircleUp Raises $22m Growth Fund. The San Francisco-based equity-based crowdfunding platform helps accredited investors find free access to private consumer-focused (mainly within consumer products and retail) investments, making it easier for investors to identify, diligence, and back companies they understand. Funding will be used to launch its Consumer Growth Fund, which will be used to match investments in consumer brands made through its crowdfunding platform. Whereas CircleUp’s traditional business model charges 5 percent commission tied to funds raised, the new Consumer Growth Fund will charge investors and also take both performance and management fees between 2 and 20 percent. According to TechCrunch, the average company funded through CircleUp has witnessed 90 percent growth per year after raising funds, but so far there have been no exits through sales or other liquidity events.

Announced: 07/13/15 CircleUp’s Investment To-Date (excluding this investment fund): $23.0m Founded: October 2011

Grofers Raises $36m. The Gurgaon, India-based online mobile delivery app delivers produce and other goods from local stores on-demand. Customers can choose from a selection of over 20,000 items, including essentials like diapers and personal grooming items and have purchases delivered within 90 minutes. The Economic Times notes that the deal increased the company’s valuation threefold. Funding will be used towards marketing and expanding its offerings in more categories and geographies.

Announced: 07/11/15 Valuation: $115 million Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Previous Investment: $45.5 million Founded: December 2013

Eatlo Raises Angel Funding (“under $1m”). The Bangalore-based mobile platform allows users to order food and have it delivered within 20 minutes. The company currently delivers food from across seven locations in the city and operates with a network of seven chefs and 10 fulfillment centers, claiming to serve 1,200 orders daily. Funding will be used to scale up the business by increasing its delivery locations to 20, hiring 100 employees, and improving its back-end technology.

Announced: 07/07/2015 Stage: Angel Participating Institutional Investors: Globevestor, Powai Lake Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Foody Raises Undisclosed Series B and Series C. The Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam-based startup initially launched as a gourmet search and user review media platform has since diversified its services to include table booking and food delivery. TechinAsia reports that Foody aims to become to top platform in Vietnam and is interested in expanding into other countries in Southeast Asia using a hyperlocal strategy.  Stunningly, the company announced both a Series B and Series C in the same month! Foody will use to funding to accelerate growth in user number, content, and expand its booking and delivery services as well as into new markets in Southeast Asia, beginning with Indonesia.

Announced: 07/07/15 and 7/28/15  Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Garena (Series B), Tiger Global (Series C)  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: June 2012

Quinto Raises Seed Funding. The Pune, India-based personalized recommendation app lets users discover dishes using crowdsourced ratings. Quinto differentiates itself from similar services by emphasizing ratings of particular dishes instead of the restaurant as a whole. Funding will be used to build up Quinto’ engineering and marketing teams, in addition to improving and expanding the recommendation engine.

Announced: 07/05/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

Berry Kitchen Raises $1.25m. The Jakarta, Indonesia-based meal delivery service employs a ‘bento model,’ allowing users to create their own lunch or dinner menus by combining different food options. Berry Kitchen claims that since its launch, it has served more than 245,000 boxes to 7,000 customers, who purchase credits in advance which can be redeemed for meals. The new capital will be used towards marketing, expanding its operational and technology team, improving its tech platform, and building two kitchens to serve orders in the Jakarta area.

Announced: 07/05/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Sovereign’s Capital (lead), East Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

1to1Fitness Raises Seed Funding. The Noida, India-based lifestyle startup aims to optimize healthy nutrition and lifestyle needs of the modern day professional. The company’s online platform features diet plans, work outs, health assessment, online lifestyle coaching, and live yoga classes. As part of the investment 1to1Fitness will receive consulting from investor SeedSphere.

Announced: 07/09/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: SeedSphere Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Not Disclosed

Adored Raises $2.3m. The Manchester, New Hampshire-based loyalty experience platform beams personalized offers to customers in restaurants, cafes, and resorts by employing iBeacon transmitter technologies. Adored’s app is available on iOS and Android platforms and tracks customer preferences from phones behavior, without requiring information such as names and emails that may provoke privacy concerns. For merchants, Adore’s customer analytics could provide insight for increasing sales and promoting engagement. The company intends to use the funds to double its team, in particular the engineering and sales teams.

Announced: 07/08/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Borealis Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Kepha Partners, Matrix Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: September 2014

Chope Raises $8m. The Singapore-based restaurant reservation platform sends users instant reservation confirmation emails after users log on to the service to place a reservation at their desired restaurant. The company recently expanded to become a restaurant management and marketing platform and derives its revenues equally between a monthly fee for its operations management features and booking fees from its reservation service. Funding will enable Chope to add new features, including the development of an app for the Apple Watch and “What’s Happening,” a feature to enable diners to track the restaurants at which their friends have dined.

Announced: 06/30/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: F&H Fund Management (Lead), NSI Ventures (Lead), DSG Consumer Partners, Frontier Ventures, Singapore Press Holdings Previous Investment: $3.4 million Founded: June 2011

AAGAAR Raises Angel Funding. The New Delhi-based hyperlocal delivery service provides fresh and daily essentials, including groceries and personal care products, to customers’ doorsteps. The company noted that the current round helped the company set up as well as validated the process and infrastructure for the company’s services. The funding will be used to re-structure AAGARR’s portal, augment warehouse infrastructure, and improve delivery setup.

Announced: 06/29/15 Stage: Angel Participating Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: November 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

Drizly Partners with BlueConic to create a more individualized experience across commerce and content when shopping for beer, wine, and liquor.

Revel Systems Partners with Zapper to integrate payment solutions so that restaurants using Revel Systems have an additional payment option for customers.

7-Eleven Partners with Postmates to launch one-hour delivery service.

TripHobo Partners with Zomato to provide users with destination based restaurant suggestions.

Foursquare Partners with Uber to introduce ride ordering services within Foursquare’s app.

USDA Partners with Microsoft to create $60,000 innovation challenge to spur the creation of tech tools for analyzing food supply data.

Crisp Media Partners with Reader’s Digest to connect consumer packaged goods marketers and retailers with consumers.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: July 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: August 2015

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This is a monthly guest post, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, which highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

Global food tech investments dominated August, with two thirds of the funded companies based outside of the U.S. (representing 95% of the total capital raised). Total food tech and media funding for the month rounded out to approximately $950 million across 26 global companies, with a subset of eight U.S. companies garnering a combined investment of $44 million. There were four acquisitions with undisclosed values, all based in the U.S. and relatively early stage.

The broad international trends reflect the same hot sectors in the U.S. – food delivery, online ordering, ecommerce, restaurant platforms – and with five of the deals valued at more than $20 million, we are seeing the same shift towards expansion and scalability for the leaders of the pack. In August, the two largest deals were China-based companies, totaling $710 million of investment. In this context, China appears to be a cycle ahead of the U.S. in terms of maturing concepts, with an increasing number of companies scaling beyond U.S. benchmarks of reach and growth.

Meanwhile, as I discussed in May, India has begun to embrace food tech concepts, and entrepreneurs are churning out a steady number of new companies each month. While there are a handful of established brands in India, like BigBasket.com and Zomato (both recently reported to be valued at $1 billion), most players in the Indian food tech space are still in the early stages of market- and thesis-testing modes. As highlighted in the Economic Times, this evolving market is quickly becoming cluttered, and the “real test will come when they plan to scale in other geographies without comprising on quality.”

M&A

Reserve Acquires Set for Service. The New York-based provider of CRM systems for restaurants will allow Reserve to offer restaurants the ability to track customer feedback and details, such as reservation notes, dining habits, or allergies, in order to improve guest experience. Reserve, a provider of restaurant reservation and payment solutions, will continue to offer all Set for Service features to its existing clients while deciding which features to integrate with Reserve. Set for Service’s CEO and founder has joined Reserve as the head of restaurant product and New York General Manager.

Announced: 08/21/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2009

InstaCart Acquires Wedding Party. The Palo Alto, CA-based mobile app has been acquihired by InstaCart, which will take on six of Wedding Party’s employees, most of which are engineers. As both companies are data driven, the new hirers are expected to work on the consumer-facing aspects of its technology, the shopper-facing app, as well as preferred partner products including partner interface and catalogs. Reportedly, Wedding Party’s app will continue to exist into the near future.

Announced: 08/04/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $1.0m  Founded: August 2012

Vivonet Acquisitions Acquires Syrus Restaurant Information Services. The Columbus, OH-based SaaS back-office and above-store reporting solutions provider focuses on the North American restaurant industry, and will allow Vivonet, which provides omni-channel POS solutions, to offer its clients an integrated solution for labor, inventory, and ordering.  Syrus’s SaaS platform integrates with most point of sale systems in the market, and serves over 2,500 restaurants.

Announced: 08/27/15  Terms: All Cash Transaction  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 1996

Rise Acquires HealthyOut. The New York-based mobile nutrition platform, which gives users recommendations on healthy dishes at local restaurants, will help Rise, a mobile platform that connects users with personal diet coaches, improve its services in helping users create a healthier diet. The company utilizes machine learning technology to process over 140,000 restaurant menus in the country. According to TechCrunch, the acquisition will also help Rise retain its competitive edge without having to invent a similar product.

Announced: 08/19/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $1.2m  Founded: 2013

FUNDING

Ele.me Raises $630m. The Shanghai-based food delivery service is an online platform that offers customer-to-customer meal ordering services, and also works as a communication platform between users and restaurants. According to Forbes, the deal has made Ele.me, which translates to “Are you hungry now?,” the fourth largest food ordering platform after Grubhub, Delivery Hero, and Just Eat. The company will use the funds to expand into more cities and build its own delivery network. As part of its investment in Ele.me, retailer Hualian will partner with Ele.me to deliveries from its supermarkets across the country.

Announced: 08/28/15  Valuation: $3 billion  Stage: Series F  Participating Institutional Investors: CITIC Capital Holdings (Lead), Hualian (Lead), JD.com, Sequoia Capital, Tencent Holdings  Previous Investment: $455.0 million  Founded: September 2008

iZettle Raises $67m. The Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of mobile point-of-sale solutions enables small businesses to provide mobile payment services through its card readers for smartphones and tablets. With the raise, the company announced its new project, iZettle Advance, a financing product that will allow iZettle customers to access extra capital as an advance on card sales. Upon approval into the iZettle Advance program, customers will receive funding within days, and paybacks occur automatically as a fraction of card sales. iZettle intends to use the funding towards development and expansion of the iZettle Advance project, as well as continued growth in existing and future markets.

Announced: 08/28/15  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Intel Capital (Lead), Zouk Capital LLP (Lead), 83North, Creandum, Dawn Capital, Index Ventures, Northzone, Santander Innoventures   Previous Investment: $108.8 million  Founded: April 2010

Pronto Raises $1.6m. The London-based meal delivery service offers cooked meals using ingredients sourced from local producers. According to TechCrunch, Pronto differentiates its service from delivery giants by offering healthier versions of traditional British meals. Pronto currently has over 1,000 customers, and reports to have a large number of return customers. The company plans to use the funding to hire more personnel and start a marketing push for the first time.

Announced: 08/27/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors:  Playfair Capital,  Seedcamp,  London Co-Investment Fund, Ballpark Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Food Talk India Raises $500k. The Gurgaon, India-based online food community lets members read and share food experiences through real-time restaurant recommendations. Originally starting out as an invite-only social food forum on Facebook, the company currently has over 400,000 followers across various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Viber. The company additionally offers in-person events in the form of curated social events. Funding will be used to launch its new product, a mobile app Food Talk Plus geared towards hyper-local dish discovery.

Announced: 08/26/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Yogiyo Raises $35m. The Seoul, Korea-based food delivery service app was Korea’s first online food ordering platform, and now through strategic investment, represents a Korean brand of Delivery Hero.  Although Korean competitor Baedaltong, was acquired by Delivery Hero last December, Delivery Hero has no immediate plans of merging YoGiYo and Baedaltong, as they each “have well established their own positions in the market.” With this new capital infusion, Yogiyo will focus on customer satisfaction through continued development and improvement to products and services.

Announced: 08/25/15  Stage: Venture  Participating Investors: Delivery Hero  Previous Investment: $23.6 million  Founded: June 2012

EazyDiner Raises $3m. The Delhi, India-based restaurant reservation platform is offers real-time guaranteed restaurant reservations. The company features over 19,000 restaurant and bars, as well as over 1,000 critic reviews. Users receive deals and discounts with each reservation, and the company has a loyalty rewards program. The company will use the capital injection to expand into 12 cities in India by the end of 2016.

Announced: 08/25/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Chrys Capital, DSG Consumer Partners, Saama Capita, Deepak Shahdadpuri, Gulpreet Kohli  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Jolly Food Fellow Raises $300k. The Ahmedabad, India-based mobile app provides food vendors operating through ecommerce platforms with analytics about their customers to apply customer target strategies. The startup currently offers data on customers, including what they eat, and the number of times they visit. The company has plans to add more analytics of customers to identify repetitive clients, which it claims will help food vendors monetize. Jolly Food Fellow has run prototypes across food retail outlets in Ahmedabad, and will use the cash infusion to expand into metro cities of Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Announced: 08/24/15  Stage: Angel  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Sampler Raises $1m. The New York, NY and Toronto-based SaaS startup enables consumer packaged goods companies to distribute samples of their products through their own redistribution channels. Using Sampler’s technology platform, companies can offer samples to targeted users, who will then receive information about picking up samples via email and social media. The company states that Sampler’s targeted method of sample distribution to targeted customers guards against “Freebie Hunters,” and provide companies with demographic and feedback data to identify their customer base.

Announced: 08/21/15 Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Business Development Bank of Canada, David B Perkins, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund   Previous Investment: $0.6 million  Founded: November 2013

RedMart Raises $26.7m. The Singapore-based online grocery retailer site enables users to browse and buy groceries, household essentials and related products. Funding will be used to support international expansion, the growth of its grocery and marketplace business, the launch of its On Demand Marketplace, and investment in its dry and fresh private label offering. TechCrunch notes that RedMart owns its own logistics and warehouse chain, which could facilitate venturing into other product categories.

Announced: 08/20/14  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Far East Ventures, Garena, SoftBank Ventures Korea, Visionnaire Ventures  Previous Investment: $33.0 million  Founded: March 2011

Revel Systems Raises $13.5m. The San Francisco-based iPad-based point-of-sale system for grocery, retail and restaurant establishments includes front-end order entry, cash register and payment processing, plus a full suite of back-end products. Revel’s platform enables small- and medium-sized businesses, franchise operators and enterprises to access a full suite of operations and reporting features designed to help manage and grow their business. The Revel platform can connect to the internet via Ethernet, and is thus accessible to merchants who do not have Wi-Fi. The new funding will be used for global expansion and to support engagements within existing and new verticals.

Announced: 08/18/15  Valuation: Over $500 million Stage: Series C-3  Participating Institutional Investors: ROTH Capital Partners  Previous Investment: $113.8 million  Founded: September 2010

Bright Cellars Raises $1.8m. The Cambridge, MA-based online subscription wine retailer distributes personalized wines using a proprietary matching algorithm. The company develops individual preference profiles for new members through a wine quiz, which has questions including which type of chocolate they prefer, how they prefer their tea, and how adventurous they are with dining. Customers then receive a selection of wines that match their tastes, and can refine their preference profile by rating wines after drinking them. Bright Cellars plans to use the funding to build its platform and hire new team members.

Announced: 08/18/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Angels on the Water, BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation, CSA Partners LLC, gener8tor  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Peach Raises $8m. The Seattle-based food delivery startup delivers lunches from local restaurants to office workers in Seattle and San Diego, providing a bulk-order boost to restaurants’ business during what would typically be slow periods. The company sends registered members a daily text with a lunch dish of the day as well as lite and vegetarian alternatives. The company has delivered over 400,000 meals since June 2014, and added catering services. Peach will use the capital injection to expand Boston and Washington D.C.

Announced: 08/18/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital  Previous Investment: $2.8 million  Founded: June 2014

Shadowfax Raises $300k. The Gurgaon, India-based on-demand hyperlocal delivery service enables delivery from local merchants to their customers. The company’s technological platform incorporates multiple modes of communication, as well as GPS tracking functions and automated algorithms to make its network efficient. Customers are charged on a pay-per-delivery basis depending on distance and level of service quality. Shadowfax plans to use the capital injections to expand into 10 more cities within the next year and grow its staff to more than 35 employees and 350 riders.

Announced: 08/17/15  Stage: Angel  Participating Angel Investors: Kunal Bahl, Prashant Malik, Rohit Bansal, Zishaan Hayath  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

MassBlurb Raises Angel Funding. The Mumbai, India-based startup provides social media marketing services to small and medium sized restaurants. The company’s marketing automation tool is a single dashboard for restaurants to manage their online presence and list their businesses on sites like Zomato and FoodPanda. MassBlurb will use the capital infusion to provide more features to its product offerings and expand across India and abroad.

Announced: 08/13/15  Stage: Angel  Participating Angel Investors: Abhimanyu Munjal, Keshav Baljee, Vikram Chachra  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Big Basket Raises $50m. The Bangalore, India-based online grocery store is the largest in India. TechCrunch reports that BigBasket presently offers four daily time slots for delivery, but may launch one hour delivery after its acquisition of hyperlocal delivery startup Delyvr. The company is currently facing competition from other hyperlocal delivery services offering on demand delivery from nearby stores. BigBasket.com will apply the funding towards expansion, and has plans to open 10 new warehouses expand into 50 Tier II cities.

Announced: 08/12/15  Valuation: $1 billion  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Ascent Capital Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Zodius Capital  Previous Investment: $35.8 million  Founded: October 2011

Mogl Raises $8m. The San Diego-based rewards and loyalty app allows users to gain cash-back rewards for spending money at partner restaurants and also provides the option to donate rewards to a fundraiser or transfer rewards into points toward airline flights, hotel stays and more.  Offline merchants can create an offer to be displayed on the company’s network of participating websites and apps. Customers who would like to take the offer can link their debit or credit card through the participating website or app, and get rewarded when making a purchase offline. Mogl plans to use the funding to expand and apply its technology foundation to other industries, including gas stations, health-conscious grocery stores, clothing stores, and spas.

Announced: 08/11/15  Stage: Venture Round  Participating Institutional Investors: Aequitas Capital, Avalon Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Monroe Capital, Moore Venture Partners, Sigma Partners  Previous Investment: $26.8 million  Founded: 2010

RainCan Raises $100k. The Pune, India-based provider of dairy, meat, bakery, fruits, and vegetables operates on a subscription-based service. RainCan earns a 10-15% margin on its products, and has partnered with distributors of Nestle, ITC and P&G. The proceeds will be used to help the company grow and increase orders from 100 a day to 500 a day.

Announced: 08/10/15  Stage: Angel  Participating Angel Investors: Ajeet Khurana  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2000

Dinner Lab Raises $7m. The New Orleans-based membership-based dining club connects undiscovered chefs with interested diners by giving members access to pop-up dining events thrown in particular locations. The company hosts multiple dinners a month more than 30 cities. Locations include warehouses and helipads, and the food is prepared by chefs that may not be operating their own kitchen. Dinner Lab currently has over 25,000 members, and charges a yearly membership fee as well as a per meal fee should members decide to attend. The company intends to use the funding to expand operations across U.S. markets and its B2B solutions.

Announced: 08/06/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: James River Capital, Innovation Catalyst  Previous Investment: $3.1 million  Founded: August 2011

Green Blender Raises $900k. The New York-based smoothie ingredients subscription service sends customers pre-portioned ingredients to make smoothies at home. The company sends ingredients for ten smoothies, with five recipes, and claims to source ingredients from organic and local farms whenever possible. The funding will be used to support the company’s growth, through hiring, geographic expansion, partnerships, and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 08/06/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: FOOD-X, Point Nine Capital, SOSV   Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Beat the Q Posse Group Raises $5m. The Sydney, Australia-based group is newly formed, comprised of three formerly separate companies Posse, Beat the Q, and E-Coffee Card. The company’s app Hey You enables customers to order from cafes en route, gain loyalty benefits, and connect with storeowners. Beat the Q Posse Group plans to use the funding for further product development and operation scaling. According to BRW, new features will include group ordering as well as beacon-enabled table service.

Announced: 08/04/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Reinventure  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2011

Meal Box Raises $3.6m. The Istanbul, Turkey-based on-demand meal delivery service offers traditional home-cooked style Turkish food. According to TechCrunch, Meal Box’s offering is in contrast to that of most meal delivery services in Turkey, which serve fast food or street food. Meal Box operates its own centralized kitchen and has a network of delivery centers throughout the cities, enabling the company to ensure delivery within 30 minutes. The company has plans to expand to Ankara and other major cities by the end of the year.

Announced: 08/03/15  Stage: Venture Round  Participating Institutional Investors: Aslanoba Capital  Previous Investment: $3.6 million  Founded: 2014

IOrderFresh Raises $1m. The Delhi, India-based mobile food and grocery retailer caters to customers in and around the National Capital Region. The company does not store inventory for retail, and instead procures products from wholesale retailers the day of delivery. The cash infusion will be used for technology development, increasing the supply chain, and customer acquisition and services.

Announced: 08/01/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Best Foodworks (lead)  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Cake Raises $2.2m. The London-based mobile payment platform lets users pay or split the bill to their preference at restaurant and bars. Cake currently has a network of over 20 registered businesses and expects to expand to 100 businesses by the end of 2015. Funding will be used to support growth in London and Los Angeles.

Closed: 08/01/15  Stage: Equity Crowdfunding  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $1 million  Founded: February 2014

Jiuxian Raises $80m. The Beijing-based online alcohol retailer is the largest in China. In addition to its core business of alcohol retail, Jiuxian has developed four other business segments, including integrated branding services, on demand delivery service services, creation of customized brands for online sales channels, and online special offers. The funding makes Jiuxian China’s tenth best funded startup, and part of the new funding for Jiuxian will go towards growing a spin-off, on-demand wine and beer delivery service Jiukuaidao, which taps local brick-and-mortar stores to deliver to buyers in their area. Funding will also be used towards expansion of the company’s market share of online retail and line of customized brands.

Announced: 07/31/15  Valuation: $1.05 billion  Stage: Series G  Participating Institutional Investors: Merrysunny Wealth (lead)  Previous Investment: $182.5 million  Founded: 2009

Improvonia Raises $4m. The Washington, DC-based mobile and web-based communication platform connects buyers and sellers to improve communication and streamline the ordering process in the hospitality industry. Restaurants that use the service can place all their orders to all their suppliers at once. The company will apply the funding towards expansion to new cities, hiring more user facing employees, and building out the ordering platform.

Announced: 07/31/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: BlueRun Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2014

Opinio Raises $1.3m. The Bangalore-based last mile delivery service connects customers with restaurants, grocers, laundry services, and pharmacies. The startup is currently processing over 1,000 orders daily, and is available in seven areas within Bangalore. Opinio has plans to expand into more cities, and funding will be used to sustain the company for another 4 to 5 months as it plans to raise another round.

Announced: 07/28/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Accel, TraxcnLabs  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: January 2015

PARTNERSHIPS

Focus Brands Partners with Postmates to launch on-demand delivery service for the six foodservice chains in its portfolio, including Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, Carvel, Cinnabon, McAlister’s Deli, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Schlotzsky’s.

POS on Cloud Partners with Clutch to offer Clutch’s suite of customer intelligence and engagement solutions to its network of merchants.

Google Partners with ASOS and Munchery to promote its music station.

Subway Partners with PayPal to let people pay via PayPal when ordering from its mobile app.

Revel Systems Partners with Zapper to let restaurants activate Zapper as an additional payment option for customers.

Peapod Partners with FarmLogix to launch Pea Pod Local Farm Box, which delivers local seasonal produce to customers.

CircleUp Partners with Amazon Launchpad to enhance consumer discoverability for food entrepreneurs in CircleUp’s portfolio.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: August 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.


Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: December 2015

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This is a monthly guest post, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, which highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

As has been typical the last couple of years, December funding activity in the U.S. was relatively light, however a bulk of international deals (mainly in Asia) spurred additional momentum in the food tech category. In total, over $125 million was raised globally across sixteen private companies, with $67.1 million of the investment going to six U.S.-based startups.

On the M&A front, while there were some opportunistic acquisitions in the mix, all five targets in December added strategic heft to the acquiring parties, primarily around customer growth and adding to the talent pool.

Overall, restaurant-related tech and delivery concepts continue to make up the bulk of activity, however it was good to see the content sector getting some traction with meaningful capital deployed for Tastemade, Yummly, Panna and Burpple. Stay tuned for the 2015 Annual Report next week, which will take a broader look at the yearly trends and investment breakdown between categories.

M&A

Peppertap Acquires Jiffstore. The Bangalore, India-based grocery delivery service was acqui-hired by Peppertap, the Guragon, India-based on-demand grocery delivery service.  The 40-person Jiffstore team will join Peppertap, aiming to enhance user experience and technology talent. As Inc42 notes, PepperTap will not venture into the same business model as Jiffstore, which collaborated directly with the merchants to fulfill orders and pass on the customers. PepperTap’s approach is to handle everything from taking orders, to procuring supplies and making deliveries. The acquisition comes at the same time as Peppertap closing a $40 million Series B investment.

Announced: 12/21/15  Terms: Not Disclosed (cash and stockPrevious Investment: $500k  Founded: October 2013

Yummly Acquires The Orange Chef. The San Francisco, CA-based connected kitchen platform was a strong strategic fit for Yummly, as they both are focused on augmenting the food experience through food technology, data and discovery.  Primarily an acqui-hire, over half of the Orange Chef’s team will join the startup’s CEO, Santiago Merea, who was named Chief Revenue Officer of Yummly. Building on Yummly’s 15 million monthly unique users, Merea will lead the company’s effort to drive its revenue streams by working with brands and companies ranging from consumer product goods to kitchenware and to identify new opportunities for growth. Notable, Yummly didn’t acquire the startup’s hardware assets for the Prep Pad, a connected food scale.

Announced: 12/11/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $5.4m  Founded: April 2011

Vietnammm Acquires Vietnamese business of Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda. The acquisition will provide Vietnammm, a Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam-based food delivery service, with access to a new customer base as well as a restaurant partner base containing over 1,000 restaurants. Foodpanda shut down operations in Vietnam due to financial issues.

Announced: 12/07/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed

GrubHub Acquires Delivered Dish. The Portland, OR-based food delivery and catering service focuses on both corporate and consumer diners, operating in areas including Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego, El Paso and Albuquerque as well as its Portland base. The acquisition will allow Grubhub to expand delivery services and the courier network in the western United States. GrubHub’s delivery service currently serves diners and restaurants in 30 markets and expects to be in more than 40 markets by the end of 2015. According to the Chicago Tribune report, Delivered Dish will maintain current operations and team, with no plans for immediate changes.

Announced: 12/07/15  Terms: Not Disclosed (Estimated at $10-$20m) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2002

DinnerLab Acquires Dishcrawl. The San Jose, CA-based online culinary community and event finder will expand DinnerLab’s community offerings to include more “food crawl” events. While DinnerLab currently has over 75,000 members (membership allows for early access to events), in an effort to grow its audience, the New Orleans, LA-based social dining event club recently dropped its membership fee, hoping to triple the number of dinners it offers each week (currently hosting between 25 and 30 dinner parties each week across the country).  Separately, as the company continues to refine its business model, DinnerLab also announced layoffs during the month as it shifts to a contract-based model for its events staff, versus full-time. As TechCrunch notes, the company is now centralizing a lot of roles to its main office, such as sourcing ingredients and finding venues, which were traditionally handled by on-the-ground employees.

Announced: 12/02/15  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $150k  Founded: 2010

FUNDING

PepperTap Closed Series B with Additional $4m. The Guragon, India-based grocery delivery service allows consumers to select products from local grocery stores for on-demand delivery. The funding finalizes a $40 million Series B investment, $36 million of which was raised in September from investors including Snapdeal, Sequoia Capital, and SAIF Partners. Along with the investment, PepperTap has acquired Jiffstore, the Bangalore, India-based grocery delivery service.

Announced: 12/21/15  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: InnoVen Capital India  Previous Investment: $47.2 million  Founded: November 2014

Tastemade Raises $40m. The Los Angeles, CA-based digital media company focused on food, travel and lifestyle programming for the “connected generation” has a global audience of 100 million active monthly viewers, with about 60% aged 18 to 34 and its biggest markets in the U.S., Japan and Brazil. With videos available on many social media platforms, including Facebook, Snapchat, Apple TV, Spotify, and YouTube, the company has yet to make a profit and will need to scale up to capture more advertising revenue. According to Entrepreneur, its fastest growing revenue streams come from native advertising. The investment will be used to increase staff and expand the company’s presence on digital platforms.

Announced: 12/17/15  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Goldman Sachs (lead), Comcast Ventures, Liberty Media, Redpoint Ventures, Scripps Network Interactive  Previous Investment: $40.3 million  Founded: 2012

Panna Raises Strategic Investment from A&E Networks. The Westfield, NJ-based digital cooking brand offers consumers premium instructional cooking videos with recipes from award-winning chefs. Panna also recent launched Simmer, described as “Instagram of video recipes,” which enables users to upload their own favorite recipes in step-by-step video format. In conjunction with the undisclosed investment, Panna will partner with A&E to produce recipe videos to be aired as interstitials on A&E’s FYI Network.

Announced: 12/15/15   Participating Institutional Investors: A&E Networks  Previous Investment: $1.4m  Founded: January 2012

Matsmart Raises $3.5m. The Skerike, Sweden-based online grocery store sells “soon-to-be-expired” food products, at up to 90% discount to retail prices. The company aims to reduce the amount of food waste by selling foods that would otherwise be thrown away. The proceeds will be used to expand the company in Sweden and abroad to other European countries.

Announced: 12/15/15  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Northzone, GP Bullhound, Edastra  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: December 2013

TabbedOut Raises $2m. The Austin-based mobile payment app is currently installed in over 10,000 venues in the U.S. and allows patrons to open, review, and securely pay their tab. This investment, which is an extension of the Series C funding announced in June, will be used to expand to 20 planned U.S metro areas and then launch internationally soon thereafter, advance the consumer app, build integrations with other mobile services and extend Periscope’s big data analytics.

Announced: 12/11/15  Stage: Series C (Extension)  Participating Institutional Investors: Aeterna Capital  Previous Investment: $39.0 million  Founded: June 2009

Yumist Raises $2m. The Guragon, India-based meal delivery service provides a low-cost daily meal option for consumers. Yumist cooks and delivers its own meals to consumers, with current operations in Guragon, Bangalore, and South Delhi. The company will use the proceeds to grow operations within these three cities and eventually expand to more cities in India.

Announced: 12/08/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Unilazer Ventures (lead), Orios Venture Partners Previous Investment: $1.0 million  Founded: October 2014

Bringg Raises $5m. The New York, NY- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based platform for on-demand delivery provides businesses with an “uber-like experience” delivery option. Consumers can use the mobile platform to monitor delivery status, receive notifications when the driver is on the way, and set up text alerts. The funds will be used to grow Bringg’s team and services in both New York and Tel Aviv locations.

Announced: 12/07/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Ituran  Previous Investment: $2.5 million  Founded: June 2013

Gousto Raises £9m. The London-based subscription meal kit delivery service provides chef-developed recipes and organic ingredients in exact proportions. Delivery is free, and meals cost between £3-5. According to the release, with the additional funding, Gousto plans to strengthen its team of chefs and nutritionists, broaden its sales and marketing efforts, and continue to introduce a greater choice of meal and delivery options.

Announced: 12/07/15  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: BGF Ventures, MMC Ventures, Unilever Ventures, Angel Co-Fund  Previous Investment: $11.7 million  Founded: June 2012

Eatigo Raises “Multimillion-dollar” Series A. The Thailand-based online restaurant reservation app  offers discounts according to reservation time slots. The team claims eatigo has seated over one million diners, with 95% of reservations booked during non-peak hours at restaurants. According to e27, the funds will be used to strengthen eatigo’s presence in its current markets of Thailand and Singapore by increasing user and merchant acquisition as well as investing over US$1M into offline brand building in support of its online channels.

Announced: 12/07/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: June 2014

Faasos Raises $30m. The Pune, India-based online restaurant chain allows consumers to order food for on-demand delivery. The company currently operates in 15 cities across India, including Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi. According to DealStreetAsia, the company is eyeing revenues of $20 million by end of this fiscal year, and about $100 million in the next financial year as it looks to expand its presence further across India. Faasos currently receives about 350,000 orders per day, however the company aims to receive one million orders per day in the next six months.  The funds are expected to be used to grow the company to more cities throughout India, expand the range of its in-house brands, launch new services including Faasos Daily, a new mobile application for time-slotted food deliveries. The company also expects to utilize the funds for food tech acquisitions.

Announced: 12/07/15  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: ru-Net (lead), Lightbox Ventures, Sequoia Capital  Previous Investment: $20.0 million  Founded: 2004

Teforia Raises $5.1m. The Mountain View, CA-based manufacturer of tea-brewing devices offers a brewing machine with a Selective Infusion Profile System as well as technology that allows the consumer to adjust caffeine and antioxidant levels and create personalized tea recipes. The company will use the investment to develop the company and manufacture new batches of brewers.

Announced: 12/04/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Upfront Ventures (lead), InnoSpring Seed Fund, Lemnos Labs, Yves Sisteron  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Lozi Raises “Seven-Digit Investment”. The Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam-based mobile app allows consumers to find restaurants and rate dining experience. The app reported 500,000 subscribers at the end of November 2015. The funding will be used to expand the company and develop the app’s technology to better connect restaurants and users.

Announced: 12/04/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Golden Gate Ventures, DesignOne Japan Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

EatStreet Raises $15m. The Madison, WI-based online platform for food ordering allows users to browse local restaurants and order food for on-demand delivery. EatStreet currently operates in over 15,000 restaurants in over 250 cities in the United States. Founded by college students, the company targets locations with large universities. The company will use the investment to make technological advancements to its core products, hire additional employees and expand to more cities nationwide.

Announced: 12/03/15  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: 4490 Ventures (lead), Lumia Capital (lead), GCI Capital Co. Ltd., Math Venture Partners, State of Wisconsin Investment Board  Previous Investment: $12.0 million  Founded: 2010

EasyKhaana Raises $100k. The New Delhi, India-based food delivery service caters meal boxes to corporate and individual customers. The startup’s strategy is to own the complete delivery supply chain – with a combination of food, logistics & technology. The company states that orders can be placed in 30 seconds through their website. The proceeds will be used to strengthen its logistics and technology as well as reach out to more people by expanding its delivery areas.

Announced: 12/03/15  Stage: Angel  Participating Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: September 2015

FOOD LOVES TECH Expo Funded Through Joint Venture. The New York-based event, formed through a joint venture between Edible Holdings and VaynerMedia will hold its inaugural three-day exposition in June 2016 in New York City. The first-of-its-kind event will offer consumers a portal to the future of food through technology by showcasing inventors, startups and platforms that are hacking the food chain. In advance of the event, the team is launching a design competition globally and will host an incubator event in San Francisco, Austin and New York City—in conjunction with the local Edible magazine in these areas—to find designers, hardware specialists, coders, foodies and futurists who are developing products that will disrupt food.

Announced: 12/02/15 Investors: Edible Holdings, VaynerMedia Founded: 2015

Burpple Raises $6m. The Singapore-based food discovery platform assists users with selecting from dining options.  Users act as “tastemakers,” posting photo reviews and guiding each other to the best local restaurant options in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The funds will be used to expand the company throughout Asia and to develop and add new features to its services. In addition, TechCrunch notes that Burpple has doubled its data science team.

Announced: 12/01/15  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Triumph Capital, SPH Media Fund, Tembusu Partners  Previous Investment: $0.5 million  Founded: December 2011

Bite Club Raises Seed Funding. The Guragon, India-based mobile app offers consumers a daily menu of meals cooked by home, amateur, and professional chefs available for on-demand delivery. Bite Club currently serves approximately 1,000 meals a day and has served over 100,000 meals since beginning operations in November 2014. The investment will be used to expand operations in the national capital region.

Announced: 11/30/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: GrowX Venture Management, Powai Lake Ventures  Previous Investment: $0.5 million  Founded: November 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

Yelp and Open Table End Partnership. The two companies quietly ended a long-running partnership (in April) under mounting competition as each are trying to take charge of the entire customer experience.

DoorDash partners with b8ta to offer on-demand delivery of tech gadgets and products.

Drizly and Favor partner for New Years Eve to deliver snacks and beverages for New Year’s celebrants in four cities–Austin, Boston, DC and Denver.

Drizly and Allrecipes partner to make on-demand beer, wine and liquor delivery accessible from Allrecipes’ most popular recipes.

LevelUp partners with GUSTO, enterprise point of sale technology for the fast-casual marketplace, for direct integration to offer seamless payment, promotion and mobile payment solutions.

PlaceIQ partners with IRI to tackle Online-to-Offline (O2O) attribution.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: December 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

2015 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report

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This annual report, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisorslooks at the financing and acquisition trends in the Food Tech & Media ecosystem, which encompasses digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics.

$6.8 Billion of Global Food Tech Investment in 2015

The global food tech and food media ecosystem was piping hot in 2015, with (at least)* $6.8 billion of capital flowing into private companies (including $2.3 billion within the U.S.). Outside of the U.S., a majority of both investment and acquisition activity was driven by China, Germany, India and the U.K.

International Pie

China appears to be a cycle ahead of the U.S. in terms of market maturity, with an increasing number of companies scaling beyond U.S. benchmarks of reach and growth. Notable deals in 2015 included the merger of China’s competing firms Meituan and Dianping (“akin to a mix of Yelp, GroupOn and food delivery”), reportedly now valued at $18 billion, as well as the massive stockpiling by Ele.me which closed two rounds (Series E and F) totaling $980 million, in addition to an undisclosed strategic investment from Chinese ridesharing leader Didi Kuaidi.

Earlier in the year, Germany’s Rocket Internet made a substantial strategic move to “create the biggest Internet-based food-ordering service outside of China,” and thus formed the “Global Online Takeaway Group.” I definitely recommend spending some time with Rocket Internet’s presentation discussing its investment thesis in the food sector (automatic download of pdf) to gain a clearer understanding of the vision behind the consolidation – some useful industry stats in there as well.

The online ordering and delivery segments represented a significant portion of the global consolidation over the past few years, with Rocket Internet and its portfolio companies (plus others such as Zomato, Just Eat and Grubhub), gobbling up a number of regional players. As with most roll-up M&A plays, now these teams will need to deal with the complexity of their newly acquired networks, and we will likely see some moments of reckoning in 2016 (some have already occurred).

*Given that most small deals are not translated or reported by the international press, the global data represented in this report is not comprehensive, and weighted towards larger/later stage deals.

Over $2.3 Billion Private Capital Invested into the U.S in 2015

The U.S. food tech and food media industry continued to mature in 2015 as investors made their biggest bets yet, with larger and later stage deals increasingly prevalent. We saw a notable shift towards expansion and scalability for the leaders of the pack with 36 percent of all deals sized at $10 million or greater (up from 32 percent in 2014), and 22 percent of deals sized at $20 million and above (up from 17 percent in 2014).

Deal Sizes

Note: Data for U.S.-based companies only, and reflects the sectors found in the Food Tech and Media Industry Map. Investment data does not include any M&A data or public market offerings.

“On-Demand” + “Convenience” Economy Drove Momentum

With 142 private company fundings totaling over $2.3 billion, 2015 brought in slightly fewer overall deals and dollars than the previous year (there were 157 deals raising $2.6 billion in 2014). That may sound surprising to readers, as the persistent press coverage and stream of high-profile deals seemed to push 2015 into the highest level of food tech mania.

That is likely due to the mounting prevalence of startups and companies aiming to serve our every need through the “On Demand” + “Convenience” Economy, which drove a significant portion of the activity throughout the year (representing approximately 44 percent of 2015’s total U.S. food tech funding versus 29 percent in 2014). Within the sectors that broadly represent this sizzling subcategory (Online Grocery, Catering Marketplaces, Meal Delivery, Experiential Marketplaces, Online Ordering/Delivery, Food eCommerce), just over $1 billion was raised in 2015, up 34 percent from the $760 million of funding in 2014.

In the latest 2016 Food Tech & Media Industry Landscape (at the top of this report) I have clustered the boxes for the “On Demand” + “Convenience” Economy and outlined them in light blue. Notice the lack of M&A activity in these sectors. This will change in 2016.

Funding and M&A

Source: Rosenheim Advisors.
(1) Adjusted; excludes investment data for: LivingSocial, Pinterest, Square, Inmar.
(2) M&A fundraising data derived from acquired companies with reported funding info (aproximately half of the deals annually).
(3) Does not include M&A deals or public company funding.

Note: Data for U.S.-based companies only, and reflects the sectors found in the Food Tech and Media Industry Map. Investment data does not include any M&A data or public market offerings. Due to new company and funding updates, the 2013 and 2014 data reflected in this chart does not equal the data provided in the 2014 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report.

Food Tech a Mixed Plate in the Public Markets

There were two IPOs in the food tech sector in 2015 (versus four in 2014). First Data and Square, which represented a combined $16.9 billion of market capitalization (at offerings), finished the year above their IPO price, with Square closing at $13.09 ($4.3 billion market cap) and First Data closing at $16.02 ($14.4 billion market cap) on the last day of 2015.

The 2014 crop of food tech IPOs didn’t fare very well during 2015, with one exception. From January 2, 2015 to December 31, 2015, Quotient Technology (Coupons.com) and Everyday Health both lost 60% and 59%, respectively, of their stock price value.

During the same period, Grubhub’s stock price dipped 34%, while Just Eat closed up for the year at 55%. What happened? As Mahesh Vellanki points out in his analysis between the two parallel businesses, “the majority of Just-Eat’s revenue is still UK-based, and few competitors have been able to threaten their position,” while Grubhub faced a plethora of new entrants via the “On Demand” + “Convenience” Economy and subsequently altered its business model – which Wall Street reacted dramatically to.  A number of banks seem to think the market overacted to the potential threat from these new competitors, so it will be interesting to see how 2016 shapes up for Grubhub.

However, while we are very far from IPO-mania, the industry is still accumulating a growing number of well-capitalized players, and even with the currently rocky IPO market, new talk of IPOs among pure-play food tech companies has begun to surface (vs. tech incumbents with a wider focus like Yelp, Quotient (Coupons.com), Groupon, Priceline, etc.).

In what could be good news for growing restaurant tech companies, the payments and Point of Sale (POS) sector has three likely candidates in the pipeline, with Lightspeed, ShopKeep, and Revel all eyeing the public markets. Rocket Internet’s Delivery Hero has reportedly already picked bankers for a 2016 listing, while HelloFresh, another one of Rocket Internet’s investments, had filed in 2015 but put the IPO on hold in November (not before we grabbed some great market data though, thanks again Mahesh!). There is also speculation about upcoming public offerings for Zomato, Pinterest and Yext.

Echoing my own commentary from years past, the rise in incumbents focusing on this space will ultimately impact prospects for early stage companies too, as the new acquisition currency of the public markets will create additional exit paths for the variety of startups that will ultimately require a larger platform to survive.

Consolidation on the Menu for 2016

The reported value of U.S. food tech acquisitions in 2015 totaled close to $1 billion versus close to $1.2 billion in 2014 (plus another $7.9 billion for the Open Table and Micros deals combined). I had predicted that 2015 was going to be a significant M&A year in the food tech space, but it ended up lacking the definitive momentum that I had expected to occur.

Activity was indeed strong with 60 reported deals (vs 49 in 2014), and incumbents continued to increase their strategic stake in the ecosystem (including Grubhub, Groupon, Meredith, Yelp, UnderArmour, Tripadvisor, Priceline) but there were no monster deals in the U.S., and while there was a clear surge in the Ordering / Delivery / Payments categories, many targets (and even acquirers) were still on the smaller side.

While my consolidation predictions were mistimed for 2015, I think the private market overhang will give way to a significant number of opportunistic acquisitions in 2016.  In addition to the likely activity in the “On Demand” + “Convenience” Economy sectors, I think we will continue to see more global travel companies dipping into the food and restaurant sector. However, considering acquisitions like MyFitnessPal (Under Armour), or Rise (OneMedical), it is clear there is still a varied playing field of strategics looking to this space for thriving communities to engage with and build upon.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out last month’s round-up. 

 

The post 2015 Food Tech Media Funding & Acquisition Trends Report appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: January 2016

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This is a monthly guest post, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, which highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

Despite market trepidation, the new year kicked off strong for the global food tech and media ecosystem with over $500 million invested (through 17 investments and five acquisitions) plus a freshly minted $3.3 billion for China’s Meituan-Dianping, securing the company a place within the top five unicorns at a $18 billion valuation. Within that, U.S.-based companies took in a little over $300 million in private company funding, and represented all but one acquisition.

On the M&A front, notably, three of the five deals were local grocery delivery services based in TX and CA. The largest, and only international, deal was restaurant guidebook publisher Michelin’s acquisition of Bookatable, estimated to be valued at approximately $122 million. As Eater and French startup blog Rude Baguette respectively note, “it’s certainly a major leap into the 21st century for the 127-year-old company” and “represents both a big step into digital for Michelin, as well as a change in the [mergers and acquisitions] mindset in France.”

Restaurant and meal delivery-related tech was overwhelmingly prevalent among the funding sectors both globally and within the U.S. Signaling a maturing industry, while there were a few early stage concepts, more than half of the investments were sized larger than $15 million.

M&A

Farmhouse Delivery Acquires Greenling and Urban Acres. With the acquisitions, the Austin, TX-based online grocery delivery service Farmhouse Delivery, which offers local produce items for weekly or biweekly delivery, will grow the team to approximately 50 workers and offer a subscription service to customers in the Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston areas. The company doesn’t expect to operate outside of Texas.

Announced: 01/15/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Greenling – $8.2m  Urban Acres – Not Disclosed  Founded: Greenling – 2005; Urban Acres – 2008

Next Glass Merges with Untappd. Untapped, a Los Angeles, CA-based mobile app that allows users to socially share beer with other users will enhance the platform for Next Glass, a Wilmington, NC-based mobile app for personalized wine and beer recommendations. Going forward, both apps will continue operating under their original names, and each have plans for new developments. As part of the merger, the co-founders of Untappd will join the Next Glass leadership team.

Announced: 01/15/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: Untapped – September 2010; Next Glass – December 2012

Michelin Acquires Bookatable. The London, UK-based online booking service and mobile payments platform is used by more than 15 thousand restaurants across Europe, allowing Michelin to become Europe’s leading digital service for restaurant reservations. According to Rude Baguette, Bookatable was seeing increased competition in Europe from TheFork (LaFourchette, acquired by TripAdvisor in May 2014) among others; however, the relationship between Michelin & Bookatable started as early as May 2013, when the two began their partnership, allowing booking of Michelin-rated restaurants via Bookatable.  With the acquisition, Bookatable plans to expand its new service to countries in Scandinavia. In case you are keeping track – Bookatable was previously known as Livebookings, as the two companies appear to have merged in 2007 (and before that, Livebookings was called Profitable.net).

Announced: 01/11/16  Terms: Est €108 m ($122m)  Previous Investment: $56.5m  Founded: 2005

GrubMarket Acquires FarmBox. The Los Angeles, CA-based organic grocery delivery service will expand the business of Grubmarket, a Newark, CA-based online marketplace where consumers can buy products from farmers markets, farms, and restaurants. The company plans to expand nationwide and according to an interview with Forbes, with the acquisition, the company will reach a total of 60 employees, expecting to double headcount, to 100-140 employees, by the year’s end.

Announced: 01/05/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2009

FUNDING

Tinmen Raised Undisclosed Angel Funding. The Hyderabad-India-based food delivery startup sources meals from home cooks and delivers to offices and professionals, “like a virtual cafeteria.” According to Inc42, the capital will be used to serve a larger set of customers in Hyderabad and thereafter expand to other cities.

Announced: 01/29/16  Stage: Angel  Participating Institutional Investors: Lead Angel Network  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: August 2015

Black Garlic Raises Undisclosed Seed. The Jakarta, Indonesia-based meal-kit delivery startup is targeted towards middle class families and takes about 45 minutes to cook. According to Tech In Asia, the funding will be used to scale up the company’s operations in the Jakarta metro area, and to diversify Black Garlic’s offerings.

Announced: 01/25/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Convergence Ventures, Skystar Capital  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

SheKnows Media Secures $22m Credit Facility. The New York, NY-based women’s digital media company operates as a platform where experts, bloggers, and social media influencers post content designed to empower women. According to AdExchanger, 75% of total ad revenue is connected one way or another with an influencer marketing campaign. SheKnows acquired BlogHer in November 2014 and had previously acquired a handful of female-focused publishers, giving it 92 million unique visitors. The credit line will be used for further acquisitions (focused on companies “empowering women”), as well as to enhance SheKnows Media’s Momentum Content Management System technology platform.

Announced: 01/26/16  Stage: Debt  Participating Lender: Ally Corporate Finance  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (Great Hill Partners acquired SheKnows in 2012Founded: November 2003

FiveStars Raises $50m. The San Francisco, CA-based platform for customer loyalty rewards provides rewards programs for restaurants and small businesses via mobile app. Programs track customer visits and include rewards such as discounts and coupons. To date, FiveStars has been used by over 10 thousand merchants and 10 thousand consumers. FiveStars will use the investment to continue to build the team, grow their brand and expand within the United States.

Announced: 01/22/16   Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: HarbourVest Partners (Lead), Menlo Ventures, DCM, Lightspeed Venture Partners  Previous Investment: $42.7 million  Founded: 2011

Olo Raises$40m. The New York, NY-based white label SaaS platform for mobile and online ordering and delivery integrates its services with restaurant’s point-of-sale systems to maximize sales and improve the customer experience. The investment will allow Olo to grow enhance its offerings, and expand its on-demand delivery platform, Dispatch. Dispatch facilitates access to a national network of independent Delivery Service Providers, collects real-time price quotes, chooses the best available, and extends the option to the consumer.

Announced: 01/21/16  Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: The Raine Group  Previous Investment: $23.3 million  Founded: 2005

Boxed Raises $100m. The Edison, NJ-based ecommerce startup sells Costco-sized groceries and household goods online and via mobile app. Rather than taking market share form big box stores like Costco, BJ’s, or Sam’s Club, the founder maintains the company is converting a customer base of over 80 percent ages 25 to 44 to changing their habits to bulk buying instead of purchasing one-off. The company will use the capital infusion to expand the team, offerings and customer service operations.

Announced: 01/20/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: blisce, Huangpu River Ventures Limited, Vaizra Investments, FJ Labs, Jose Marin, Fabrice Grinda, Yuri Milner, GGV Capital, Safa Partners, Light Street Capital Management  Previous Investment: $32.6 million  Founded: June 2013

Gather Raises $2.5m. The Atlanta-based event management software helps restaurants and venues manage and grow their private events business. Gather allows clients to respond to leads, manage their calendar, create and send proposals, collect payments and more. The company states that it is profitable, and will be using the funding for expedited product development, sales and marketing. The company employs about 25 and plans to double its workforce in the next 12 months.

Announced: 01/19/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Storm Ventures (lead), Ludlow Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2012

Tovala Raises $500k. The Chicago-based smart kitchen startup automates home cooking through a new type of food tech appliance plus the delivery of premade meals. The company’s appliance, also called Tovala, utilizes a combination of dry and wet heat cooking technology instead of microwave technology, so users can cook several different types of foods in the same unit at the same time. Users can create their own recipes (and upload to the app for the potential to earn royalties), or they can subscribe to get fresh, chef-designed meals delivered to them weekly that are specifically developed for the machine.

Announced: 01/19/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Origin Ventures Previous Investment: $70k  Founded: May 2015

ALICE Raises $9.5m. The New York, NY–based hospitality operations platform focuses primarily on hotels, and enables all front of house, back of house and guest communication needs to be handled in one platform. According to Skift, the new strategic investor allows the company to leverage Expedia’s database of hotel partners. The team will use the funding to “continue to build out the technology and significantly expand the team hiring sales, engineering, product, and account management roles.”

Announced: 01/19/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Expedia (lead), 645 Ventures, Laconia Ventures, neuehouse  Previous Investment: $3.5 million  Founded: July 2012

Swiggy Raises $35m. The Bangalore, India-based on-demand delivery and payments platform service allows customers to order meals from restaurants for on-demand delivery. Swiggy currently operates in Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Chenna, with around 5000 restaurants on its platform. The investment will be used to expand the company, hire engineering talent, and upgrade platform technology.

Announced: 01/18/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: RB Investments, Harmony Partners, Accel, Northwest Venture Partners, SAIF Partners  Previous Investment: $18.5 million  Founded: August 2014

Meituan-Dianping Raises $3.3b. The Shanghai, China-based mobile app allows consumers to receive group discounts (similar to Groupon), order food from restaurants, and read and write restaurant reviews. The company, which has emerged as the largest player in China’s online-to-offline (O2O) market, was formed last fall after Meituan (backed by Alibaba) merged with Dianping (backed by Tencent). Meituan and Dianping still operate as independent brands.

Announced: 01/18/16  Valuation: $18.0 billion Stage: Series F  Participating Institutional Investors: Capital Today, Baillie Gifford, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, TBP Capital, Temasek Holdings, ST Global, Tencent Holdings  Previous Investment: $2.1 billion (represents combination of Meituan and Dianping investment)  Founded: October 2015 (through merger)

Grain Raises $1.7m. The Singapore-based “Full-Stack” food delivery service manages the process from meal preparation and cooking, to orders and delivery. The company keeps its menu narrow with four different meals available each day on a selection that rotates weekly. According to Tech In Asia, the company plans to use the funding build up infrastructure and the team, including marketing and tech, as well as expansion to Hong Kong and beyond.

Announced: 01/14/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: NSI Ventures (lead), 500 Startups, Digital Media Partners VC, Ivan Lee  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Foursquare Raises $45m. The New York, NY-based mobile platform for local discovery allows users to explore options for dining and shopping in cities via location-based information and reviews written by other users. The investment will be used to build out its enterprise business, including hiring 30 new positions across sales, engineering and other functions. The round is said to value the company at approximately half of the $650 million valuation it garnered with a $77 million Series D raise in February 2014, but in a TechCrunch interview the new CEO, Jeff Glueck, is careful to note that the financing round was oversubscribed.

Announced: 01/14/16  Stage: Series E  Participating Institutional Investors: Union Square Ventures (lead), Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ Growth, Morgan Stanley  Previous Investment: $117.4 million  Founded: March 2009

Vivino Raises $25m. The Copenhagen, Denmark-based wine discovery app uses image scanning technology to identify wines consumers are drinking and offer suggestions based on users’ rating of the scanned wine. Vivino is currently used by 13 million consumers in 228 countries. The company plans to use the funding to further expand within the U.S., Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, and aims to have 25 million users by the end of 2016. Notably, the lead investor is strategic; SCP Neptune International, is the investment arm of Moet Hennessy’s global CEO Christophe Navarre.

Announced: 01/12/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: SCP Neptune International (lead), Balderton Capital, Creandum, SEED Capital Denmark  Previous Investment: $12.4 million  Founded: 2009

FreshMenu Raises $17m. The Bangalore, India-based meal delivery service runs its own kitchen and offers main meals, salads, sides, and desserts cooked by professional chefs for on-demand delivery. FreshMenu currently operates in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Guragon and will use the investment for further expansion in India. The funds will also be used to build the brand and increase staff.

Announced: 01/08/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Zodius Capital  Previous Investment: $5.0 million  Founded: 2014

Toast Raises $30m. The Boston, MA-based provider of point-of-sale systems offers Android tablet point-of-sale systems for restaurants, bars, and other food establishments. The systems provided by Toast include customer loyalty information and are used by 1,400 establishments in 43 US states. The funding will be used to hire more employees, as well as for marketing and expansion across the United States. According to a TechCrunch interview, in 2016 the company plans on launching a suite of tools that allow Toast to integrate with other services.

Announced: 01/05/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, Google Ventures  Previous Investment: $3.0 million (debt financing)  Founded: December 2011

Dipjar Raises $2.4m. The New York-based hardware and software startup provides digital tip jars and donation boxes for credit cards. DipJar manages the processing and disbursement of funds, while customers control the dollar amount setting and monitor their intake through the software dashboard. The company intends to use the funds to expand its national hardware presence and continue development of software solutions for customers.

Announced: 12/28/15  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Bolt, Project 11 Ventures, Corazon Capital, Charge Ventures  Previous Investment: $0.4 million  Founded: 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

MyWebGrocer Parters with Mastercard to streamline consumer grocery shopping.

HelloFresh Partners with Jamie Oliver to share healthy recipes with home cooks.

UnderArmour, Inc. Teams Up With IBM incorporate the Watson supercomputer into its newest fitness and health-tracking app.

Restaurant review app OpenRice partners with foodpanda to deliver in Hong Kong.

NutriSavings and FreshDirect Partner to Reward Consumers for Purchasing Healthier Foods.

Chili’s® Grill & Bar partners with Olo to power its online ordering platform.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: January 2016 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2016

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This is a monthly guest post, by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, which highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

Investment and M&A activity in February was moderate, with over $265 million of reported transaction value during the month. The bulk of the value was driven from Just Eat’s acquisition of five companies from Rocket Internet ($140 million).

On the funding front, sixteen companies raised a little over $105 million during the month (excluding Instacart’s undisclosed Whole Foods investment), with all but four financings sized at less than $10 million. This was a significant shift from January’s activity, as most deals were Series A or earlier and there was an absence of later stage deals. Approximately 65% of funded companies had operations in the U.S.

Noticeably, “health” was a prominent theme across the deals for the month; ranging from One Medical’s acquisition of Rise to multiple fresh or healthy food concepts to nutritional data and analysis. While health is a regular food tech discussion topic, it doesn’t show up quite as regularly in the investment landscape. Beginning of a new trend or we just happened to still be in close proximity to New Year’s resolutions? We shall see.

M&A

Craftsvilla Acquires PlaceofOrigin.  The Bangalore, India-based platform for specialty Indian foods will provide Craftsvilla, a Mumbai, India-based online marketplace for ethnic products, with a diverse regionalized food market and specific experience with the key logistics challenges in this space. As part of the acquisition, the 15 person team of PlaceofOrigin will join the Craftsvilla team. The acquisition follows Craftsvilla’s acquisition of Sendd, the Mumbai, India-based shipping service in January.

Announced: 02/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed (“all equity deal”) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: September 2014

Thirstie Acquires DrinkFly. The Chicago, IL-based mobile app for on-demand alcohol delivery will grow the footprint of Thirstie, particularly in Chicago’s metro area, where it will now be the single biggest player in the space. Based in New York, NY, Thirstie is a content-to-commerce marketplace for alcohol delivery, offering both traditional ecommerce and on-demand delivery by partnering with local stores to offer a range of wine, beer, and spirits for delivery within an hour. DrinkFly’s users and retail partners will be transitioned over to the combined entity, which includes Thirstie’s digital magazine, The Craft (the company says 80% of consumers come through their content platform), featuring recipes, news, hosting tips and local stories.

Announced: 02/17/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2014

Just Eat Acquires Rocket Internet’s Delivery Businesses in Spain (La Nevera Roja) and Italy (PizzaBo & hellofood Italy), Brazil (hellofood Brazil) and Mexico (hellofood Mexico). In order to “further reduce complexity of Rocket Internet,” the Berlin, Germany-based incubator has decided to sell “non-core operations that are not market-leading” to the London-based publically traded online ordering and delivery company Just Eat. Interestingly, this comes exactly one year after Rocket Internet announced it formed its “Global Online Takeaway Group” in addition to acquiring La Nevera Roja and Pizzabo. While the exact value of the assets being sold are difficult to pinpoint, Tech Crunch notes that there are clues that Rocket is selling these at a loss; “For example, in Italy, hellofood is understood to have paid €55 million — nearly half the value of the whole deal today — for PizzaBo alone.”

Announced: 02/05/16  Terms: $140 million

One Medical Acquires Rise. The San Francisco, CA-based mobile app for personalized nutrition and diet coaching will allow One Medical, a healthcare company, to connect patients with virtual nutritionists. According to the Wall Street Journal, One Medical sees an opportunity to “offer its patients a wider range of healthcare services via the smartphone that could potentially save them trips to the doctor’s office”. Rise will continue to operate independently, and the company will still be run by its original co-founders within One Medical.

Announced: 02/05/16  Terms: $20.0m  Previous Investment: $4.0m  Founded: 2013

FUNDING

iChef Raises $5.6m. The Taipei, Taiwan-based software developer produces iPad point-of-sale systems for restaurants. The software system includes table management, reservations, ordering, and payment. iChef a will use the funding to expand and to develop data analytics. To date, over a thousand restaurants are using iChef systems, and the company aims to reach 3,000 stores in Asia by the end of 2016.

Announced: 02/25/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB), CDIB Capital, AppWorks Ventures  Previous Investment: $1.5 million  Founded: 2012

Pocketin Raises $150k. The Noida, India-based platform for restaurant deals and events allows consumers to discover, compare, and choose restaurant deals in real time. To date, the company reports it has over eight thousand app downloads and has seated over 6,500 diners. The funds will be used for expansion throughout Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Guragon, with additional plans for expansion to Mumbai, Bangalore, and Dubai. In addition, the company says it plans to double its team of 15 and partner with over 1,200 restaurants in the next six months.

Announced: 02/24/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Swastika  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: August 2015

Deliv Raises $28m. The Menlo Park, CA-based crowdsourced delivery service provides customers with same-day delivery of products from local merchants, national and e-commerce retailers. Deliv currently operates in over 100 cities and serves over four thousand businesses. UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund is a notable new investor in the round, stating it intends to gain insights into the market dynamics of same-day delivery. The investment will be used for product development and to broaden the company’s national presence.

Announced: 02/24/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, Westfield Labs, Taubman Centers Inc, Simon Venture Group, The Macerich Company, General Growth Properties, PivotNorth Capital, RPM Ventures, Upfront Ventures  Previous Investment: $12.4 million  Founded: January 2012

Instacart Raises Undisclosed Strategic Funding from Whole Foods. The San Francisco, CA-based grocery delivery service will receive funding from supermarket chain, Whole Foods. The deal will expand available geographies with Instacart delivery and includes a five-year partnership between the companies, making Instacart the exclusive delivery service for Whole Foods perishable items. Additionally, with the Instacart Deals platform, Whole Foods Market shoppers can take advantage of special deals and discounts on their favorite products. The partnership thus far is reportedly impacting Whole Foods’ bottom line; as TechCrunch points out, “Whole Foods stores with dedicated shoppers are seeing growing Instacart sales – on average, this can be in the 5 to 10 percent range of their total store sales.”

Announced: 02/23/16  Participating Institutional Investors: Whole Foods  Previous Investment: $274.8 million  Founded: July 2012

Fooda Raises $5.9m. The Chicago, IL-based catering platform offers virtual cafeterias to corporate offices by sourcing a rotating daily menu from local restaurants. The company also offers delivery and pop up locations, which extends the reach and brand of local restaurants. As the Chicago Tribune reported, in November the company opened its first mall location at The Shops at North Bridge to expand to more publicly accessible locations.

Announced: 02/23/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Undisclosed  Previous Investment: $12.8 million  Founded: 2011

RAW Pressery Raises $4.5m. The Mumbai, India-based delivery juice company currently delivers cold-pressed juices to homes in six Indian cities. According to Tech Crunch, the company aspires to be the largest “clean label” lifestyle brand by adding soups, smoothies, and other pre-packaged food without additives. The company will use the money to introduce new flavors, increase production capacity and launch brand-building campaigns

Announced: 02/23/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Saama Capital, DSG Consumer Partners  Previous Investment: $1.8 million  Founded: 2013

First Eat Raises $200k. The Guragon, India-based mobile app offers subscription and on-demand delivery of healthy meals. The startup allows users to choose meals according to their health requirements, and aims to solve the problem of ‘awareness, availability and affordability’ of necessary healthy meals, by offering healthy organic meal options. The funds will be used to expand throughout the NCR region, deploy targeted marketing and develop the First Eat technology platform. In addition, the company aims to increase service to 400 to 500 meals per day next quarter.

Announced: 02/22/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investor: “Undisclosed F&B entrepreneur”  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Feasty Raises $800k. The Cincinnati, OH-based local deals app shows users deals at nearby restaurants based on their location. According to the Cincinnati Business Courier, users don’t need to purchase the deals, the app is intended to help encourage users to choose restaurants with small perks, like a free item. The company has partnered with 60 restaurants in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

Announced: 02/19/16  Stage: Angel  Participating Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

TableHero Raises $1m. The Mountain View, CA- and Bangalore, India-based company provides restaurants and small businesses with intelligent operating systems. The operating systems include a simple website designer, as well as products to manage reservations, bookings, payments, and customer loyalty. The investment will be used for product development and for the engineering and product design team. TableHero plans to launch the product in the U.S. on the west coast in cities like Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area.

Announced: 02/16/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Globevestor, Powai Lake Ventures, GrowX Venture Management  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: May 2015

Label Insight raises $10m. The St. Louis, MO-based technology and software producer provides consumers and retailers with information about food labels. Label Insight technology allows nutritional information and food product data to be more transparent to retailers, consumers, and manufacturersData includes, but is not limited to, allergen information, whether foods meet “healthy” standards, and if sales of certain types of products are up or down. The strategic investment by KPMG allows its member firms to offer retail food and beverage clients around the globe access to Label Insight’s proprietary technology, which transforms product information into smart attributes, such as nutrients and allergens, providing users with a deep understanding of their product set. The investment will be used to develop new products, broaden custom data views and expand data science capabilities.

Announced: 02/11/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: KPMG Capital (lead), Mercury Fund, Cultivation Capital, Serra Ventures, dunnhumby Ventures, West Capital Advisors  Previous Investment: $3.0 million  Founded: January 2008

Good Uncle Raises $2.2m. The New York, NY-based delivery-only restaurant concept, which expects to launch in the fall, will allow consumers in smaller U.S. cities to order top restaurant food from major cities for on-demand delivery. The company plans to set up kitchens and delivery fleets in those smaller cities and towns, linking local populations to them with a mobile app that features small, carefully curated menus of hits from acclaimed restaurants. The funds will be used to build a team and app and develop restaurant partnerships.

Announced: 02/09/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: First Round, Box Group, Gunderson Dettmer Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: November 2015

IfOnly Raises $10.25m. The San Francisco, CA-based marketplace for “incredible experiences” offers a catalog of experiences with experts in the domains of food, sports, animals, entertainment, technology, and more. The company currently operates in the Bay Area, New York, and Los Angeles and offers over 10 thousand experiences. The company is working to offer more experiences tailored to (and priced for) a broader range of clients.

Announced: 02/08/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Advance Newhouse, American Express, Digital Garage Previous Investment: $15.0 million  Founded: 2012

Power Supply Raises $5m.  The Alexandria, VA-based health food delivery service offers healthy meals for one-time or weekly subscription delivery. The company differs from other meal delivery services in that it uses local restaurants and caterers in place of central production kitchens and that it delivers directly to fitness community spots, such as gyms. Power Supply is currently operating in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The investment will be used to expand into new markets.

Announced: 02/04/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investor: Upfront Ventures Previous Investment: $0.5 million  Founded: 2010

FarmDrop Raises $4.4m. The London, England-based online farmers market allows consumers to buy local food directly from local farmers. The company’s mission is to “fix the food chain” by making the food industry based on local farms and food production. Customers place orders online and pick up their orders from producers at their local FarmDrop venue. FarmDrop will use the funding to develop its platform.

Announced: 02/03/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Jamjar Investments, Atomico  Previous Investment: $1.3 million  Founded: 2012

Food.ee Raises $6m. The Vancouver, Canada-based corporate catering and concierge service provides companies with meal delivery from local high-end restaurants. Food.ee has over 4000 customers and has partnered with over 250 restaurants. After success in its three U.S. pilot cities—Austin, Denver, and Philadelphia, the company will use the funds to launch in Atlanta and Minneapolis in March as well as more U.S. cities throughout 2016.

Announced: 02/03/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: BDC Capital  Previous Investment: $4.0 million  Founded: October 2011

Thrive Market Raises ~$20m. The Los Angeles-based wholesale buying club for health-conscious products has reportedly raised additional capital after an oversubscribed Series A this past summer via a convertible note, according to Bloomberg. The company has stated 2015 revenues of close to $50 million, with about 180,000 members, and recently expanded into private label, releasing its own organic coconut oil and tomato sauce.

Announced: 02/01/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Investors: Henry Kravis, Paul Tudor Jones  Previous Investment: $39.0 million  Founded: 2013

La Belle Assiette Raises $1.5m. The Paris, France-based on-demand private-chef and catering service allows consumers to select a professional chef to cook in their home or at office events. The chosen chef provides all ingredients and equipment to cook the catered menu. Currently, La Belle Assiette employs over 700 professional chefs in six European countries. The investment will be used to launch four new catering services—Buffets, Canapé Receptions, Office Lunches and Cooking Classes—in the next six months.

Announced: 02/01/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Kima Ventures, Cabiedes & Partners Previous Investment: $2.2 million  Founded: February 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

Foursquare Partners with Delivery.com to provide on-demand delivery in 36 cities in the United States.

Peapod Partners with WMATA to allow commuters to pick up grocery delivery orders at their Metro station stop.

Zomato Partners with Quick Delivery  to provide online ordering and on-demand delivery in the Philippines.

Amazon Partners with U.K. Grocer Morrisons to include “hundreds of Morrisons products” within Amazon’s one-hour Prime delivery and Pantry services.

Scanbuy Partners with inMarket to connect with consumers via mobile app while they are shopping.

HotSchedules Partners with PAR Technology Corporation to sync point-of-sale data with HotSchedules mobile platform.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

 

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2016 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March and April 2016

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This report is double the fun, with two monthly reports in one. Written by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors, it highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

Is There a Food Delivery Bubble?

The foodpocalypse has been a prominent theme over the last couple of months, as many opine on the bursting of the food delivery bubble. Just as the “On Demand” and “Convenience” Economies drove a significant portion of 2015’s investment (representing approximately 44 percent of 2015’s total U.S. food tech funding versus 29 percent in 2014), the category will also lead the headlines as the investor community continues to shift from a “grow at any cost” mentality to a higher emphasis on unit economics and operating KPIs.

That said, investment into the delivery category was still prominent in March and April 2016. In fact, the total combined investment in food delivery startups for the two months was actually greater than the same period in 2015. This was largely due to a massive $1.25 billion investment into Ele.me in 2016. If we normalize the data by stripping out the Ele.me investment in April 2016 and an $850 million investment into Dianping in March 2015, then combined investment into the food tech sector during the period in 2016 was down 23 percent versus 2015. M&A activity was generally in line with 2015 levels for both months.

The month of March featured six acquisitions, all of which were in the delivery sector and all except for one involved either an international buyer or target. Investment during the month totaled close to $420 million across ten deals with a similar theme of online ordering and delivery across the board. With only one seed deal, the remaining rounds were Series A or beyond, and 60 percent were international companies.

The month of April included eight acquisitions across a variety of sectors, with most based in the U.S. Investment during the month totaled close to $1.6 billion across fourteen deals, but as mentioned above Ele.me’s funding accounted for a majority of that. Close to $345 million was raised outside of the Ele.me investment. Ecommerce, ordering and delivery were dominant themes across a variety of stages ranging from seed all the way to public debt.

As I discussed in Fortune’s predictions for the year, “The 2016 Fortune Crystal Ball”, (as well as my annual report), consolidation is absolutely on the menu for 2016 and it may fast become the main course. While Kitchit, KitchenSurfing, Spoon Rocket, Chef Nightly and Dinner Lab are some of the more notable food tech startups to recently shutter, there are likely more companies to follow. But while the current narrative is focused on lack of funding and subsequent closures, I do think the private market overhang will give way to a significant number of opportunistic acquisitions as well.

Food Tech Is More Than Delivery

On a related note, due to the significant amount of press around and investment into the food delivery category, the term “food tech” has become almost synonymous with delivery-related startups for the average person (or average investor). As a result, the overall food tech sector is hitting a bit of a rough patch on the PR front.

Many startups outside of the delivery sector I speak with say they feel the implications of the delivery shakeout in their own quest for funding. This is unfortunate, as recent shifts in consumer demand and behavior around food will continue to foster tremendous opportunity through technology – both through direct to consumer solutions, as well as business to business efficiencies and insights. While the delivery category is clouding the food tech narrative, the overall sector is still at the beginning of a long trajectory. The current rightsizing will make it a stronger sector overall.

M&A

EnterWorks Holding Co. Acquires Majority of Digital Foodie. Sterling, VA-based EnterWorks, which offers product information management (PIM) solutions, has acquired a majority stake of Digital Foodie, a Finnish SaaS platform for on-demand groceries. The combined platform will be launched into the U.S. market as an end-to-end, on-demand, omni-commerce solution for the food and grocery industry. Digital Foodie’s cloud platform currently powers the largest Finnish grocer, S-Group, and has been deployed in more than 1,100 stores in Europe, ranging from hyper-markets to grocery stores and convenience stores. According to Progressive Grocer, IGA stores including Wynn’s Market in Florida, will be the first to roll out the Digital Food platform in the U.S. The transaction was led by Black Dragon Capital, a U.S.-based private equity fund that owns EnterWorks.

Announced: 04/27/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2009

Hello Curry acquires The First Meal. The Hyderabad, India-based meal delivery service will allow Hello Curry, an Indian restaurant chain based in Hyderabad, to enter the subscription and meal delivery business, as well as the additional breakfast segment. The First Meal offers subscription breakfast and lunch meal boxes, and reports that it currently sells 10,000 boxes per month with an 89% retention rate. Through First Meal, Hello Curry aims to sell 5,000 meals sold per day in the next 6 months.

Announced: 04/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Fexy Media Acquires Simply Recipes. Elise Bauer’s award-winning recipe and food blog, which grew to 6.5 million uniques in November of last year, will be the newest addition within Fexy’s portfolio of diverse digital brands, each appealing to specific food lifestyle needs. As one of six acquisitions since 2014, Simply Recipes will join Serious Eats, Roadfood, The Food Lab, and Relish as part of Fexy Media.

Announced: 04/21/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2003

Homemade Acquires CookNook. The New York, NY- and Washington D.C.-based platforms for home-cooked meals allow consumers to connect with home chefs and purchase homemade meals through online and mobile platforms. Homemade currently operates in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, and Toronto. As part of the acquisition, CookNook chefs and customers will join Homemade, and the company intends to expand along the East Coast.

Announced: 04/13/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

US Foods Acquires Food Genius.  The Chicago, IL-based data analytics company will provide the Rosamond, IL-based foodservice distributor with data about US Foods, which has been a customer of Food Genius for over a year. As part of the deal, the Food Genius team will join the US Foods team.

Announced: 04/13/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $2.5m  Founded: May 2010

Delivery.com Acquires BrewDrop. The Austin, TX-based mobile app for on-demand alcohol delivery will allow the New York, NY-based online delivery service to increase its alcohol-ordering consumer base. BrewDrop will cease operations and according to Austin Business Journal, BrewDrop’s CEO, will join  Delivery.com as director of market development and will oversee the company’s Texas expansion, with Houston and Dallas targeted next.

Announced: 04/12/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Chope Acquires Restaurant MakanLuar. The Indonesia-based restaurant reservation service will allow the Chope, a Singapore-based reservation service, to expand to Indonesia. Chope currently operates in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. At present, MakanLuar will maintain its own name, but will eventually come under Chope’s name.

Announced: 04/05/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: November 2013

Reserve Acquires Dash. The New York-based mobile payments data technology startup will add sophisticated Point of Sale integration capabilities with systems like Micros and Aloha to Reserve’s growing tech platform. Dash, which is Reserve’s fifth acquisition, also brings along an innovative “Venue Vibes” feature which notifies guests of a restaurant’s atmosphere based on real-time data.

Announced: 04/01/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $6.9m  Founded: 2011

Glovo Acquires Foodinho. The Milan, Italy-based on-demand meal delivery service Foodinho will allow Glovo, a Barcelona, Spain-based mobile app for on-demand delivery, to expand internationally. In addition to delivering restaurant and café meals, Glovo delivers any product available at local stores. Glovo currently operates in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, Spain, and with the acquisition will expand its operations to Milan, Italy.

Announced: 03/31/16  Terms: Not Disclosed (all cash) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: June 2015

Paylo.in Acquires Ruplee. The multi-channel offline payment platform Paylo.in has acquired in-restaurant payment app. According to the company, the transaction will be a “merger of both teams and products, helping Ruplee evolve into an omni-channel payment platform from an app-only play, in addition to expanding its cashless payment experience to more verticals beyond food where it already enjoys a first-mover advantage.”

Announced: 03/21/16  Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: October 2014

FoodPanda Acquires Delivery.com’s Hong Kong Operations. The Berlin, Germany-based online meal delivery service will take over the Hong Kong operations of Delivery.com, which it launched in 2014 noting that Hong Kong is “one of the world’s most densely populated places with a cultural and business environment that mirrors New York City” (where Delivery.com is headquartered). Foodpanda entered Hong Kong in 2014 as well, and has pursued an acquisition strategy in the area, with previous acquisitions from Hong Kong including Koziness and Dial a Dinner. The company notes that that the Hong Kong sale will allow Delivery.com to “refocus on its home market, where it is active in dozens of U.S. cities”.

Announced: 03/17/16 Terms: Not Disclosed  Founded: Launched in 2014

iFood Acquires SpoonRocket. Just days after announcing it was shutting down, The Brazil-based on-demand meal delivery provider will use the Berkeley, CA-based meal delivery service’s logistics platform to improve delivery time and order tracking. Spoon Rocket with cease independent operations. Currently iFood is working to expand operations throughout Latin America.

Announced: 03/17/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $13.5m  Founded: June 2013

InnerChef Acquires EatonGo and Flavour Labs. InnerChef, a Guragon, India-based platform for food discovery and delivery will utilize EatonGo’s foothold in Bangalore, while also building a network of kitchens to be closer to customers. In addition, the Flavour Labs acquisition will allow InnerChef to leverage the team’s mobile kitchen know-how and add the company’s custom designed food trucks to its operations. Both acquisitions are acqui-hires.

Announced: 03/09/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: EatonGo – $0.4m; Flavour Labs –  Not Disclosed  Founded: EatonGo – February 2015;  Flavour Labs – 2014

New Fresh LLC Acquires The Fresh Diet. The Miami, Florida-based meal delivery service allows consumers to choose healthy, gourmet meals for delivery. The company was acquired from Innovative Food Holdings by an investment group led by the original founder of The Fresh Diet.

Announced: 03/01/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Founded: November 2005

FUNDING

BoxGreen Raises $335k. The Singapore-based healthy snack delivery service provides consumers with single-serve healthy snacks delivered via subscription box. Since launching in May 2015, the company reports it has delivered over 75,000 snack packs to over 2,000 customers. The investment will be used to grow its food and innovation, customer service, and marketing/sales teams, and to develop new snacks. The company also plans to expand to Malaysia and other areas soon.

Announced: 04/29/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: 500 Startups, Expara IDM Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Milkbasket Raises $500k. The Guragon, India-based mobile app allows consumers to order groceries from their phone for delivery. Milkbasket originally only sold milk, but it now offers over 3,000 other products. The company currently operates in 15 clusters in Guragon, with about 500 app users in each cluster. The funds will be used to expand the Milkbasket team, enhance technology, and improve the logistics network.

Announced: 04/26/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: EVC (Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital)  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Baedal Minjok (Woowa Brothers Corp) Raises $50m. The Seoul, South Korea-based online restaurant ordering and delivery app will use the investment to expand its business scope toward food logistics as well as enhance apps, Baemin Riders, Baemin Fresh, and Baemin Cook—which deliver drinks, fresh foods, and pre-made foods respectively. According to Deal Street Asia, the company aims to become profitable in 2016.

Announced: 04/25/16  Stage: Series E  Participating Institutional Investors: Hillhouse Capital Group  Previous Investment: $50.1 million  Founded: 2010

Fexy Media Raises $6m. The Seattle-based digital platform for food media is building a portfolio of food-focused brands. According to the Seattle Times, Fexy Media now has 50 employees and in addition to the recently acquired Simply Recipes (see M&A section above), the company operates three other websites and apps for cooks and diners: Roadfood, Serious Eats and Relish. According to the Sacramento Bee article in discussing the Simply Recipes acquisition, in addition to a network, Fexy is able to help its portfolio companies produce and distribute videos in a cost-effective way, and aims to offer data analysis of followers that would otherwise be unaffordable to smaller platforms.

Announced: 04/21/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investor: Tritium Partners  Previous Investment: $16.3 million  Founded: 2014

CaterSpot Raises $800k. The Hong Kong-based online platform for catering connects consumers with caterers and restaurants. The company operates in Singapore and Hong Kong with over 200 providers offering over 1,000 catering menus. CaterSpot will use the investment for growth of its current operations, hiring, and product development.

Announced: 04/19/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Triplestar Capital, Swiss Founders Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: January 2016

Yummy Express Raises $10m.  The Beijing, China-based O2O solutions provider offers last mile delivery services to catering merchants and takeout platforms. Rather than many crowd-sourced competitors, Yummy Express differentiates its services through its “well-trained proprietary delivery men” and delivering relatively higher-ticket items. The company says it currently delivers over 200,000 meal orders per day in 18 cities in China, working with companies like Baidu Waimai, Meituan-Dianping, and Tencent-backed Ele.me. The new funding will be invested into company’s expansion module.

Announced: 04/19/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: ClearVue Partners (lead), SB China Capital (SBCVC)  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2012

Wolt Raises $12.4m. The Helsinki, Finland-based mobile app allows consumers to order meals from restaurants for on-demand delivery by Wolt’s courier network, which arrives within about 30 minutes. To date, the app has over 100,000 users and works with over 400 restaurants. The investment comes with the launch of the company in Stockholm.

Announced: 04/15/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Investors: EQT Ventures (lead), Niklas Zennström (Skype founder), Ilkka Paananen (Supercell CEO), and Risto Siilasmaa (Nokia Chairman) Previous Investment: $2.6 million  Founded: October 2014

TabSquare Raises $2.6m. The Singapore-based restaurant management platform provides restaurants with tablet menus which customers can browse, order and pay for their food from. Restaurants can update the menus in real time via a content management system that includes a cloud-based data warehouse and analytics engine in order to track customer behavior and spending data. TabSquare is currently used by over 60 food and beverage brands and over 150 stores. The investment will be used for expansion and for technological development.

Announced: 04/14/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Walden International (lead), Infocomm Investments, Phillip Private Equity, Raging Bull  Previous Investment: $0.5 million  Founded: May 2012

Ele.me Raises $1.25b. The Shanghai, China-based online food delivery service received a strategic investment from Alibaba but didn’t provide any further details of the transaction. TechCrunch points out that there are synergies in Alibaba’s portfolio including a joint venture called Koubei which helps restaurants offer promotions via mobile. As part of the deal, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman has joined the board of Ele.me. Ele.me will continue operations as an independent company, but may become a target for full acquisition in the near future as Alibaba is reportedly selling its stake in Meituan-Dianping.

Announced: 04/13/16  Stage: Growth Participating Institutional Investors: Alibaba Group (and its arm, Ant Financial Services Group)  Previous Investment: $1.085 billion  Founded: September 2008

Homemade Raises $2.1m. The New York, NY food marketplace offers an app that connects cooks in communities with people looking for homemade food. Users can browse through local cook options and indicate their interest in certain dishes; cooks can then confirm the meal and arrange a meet-up or drop-off. In conjunction with the raise, the company announced the acquisition of CookNook (see M&A section above). According to the Wall Street Journal, the company, which has four employees, will use the funding to hire employees in community building, product development and operations.

Announced: 04/08/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Maven Ventures (lead), Maveron, Rostrum Capital, Scrum Ventures, Slow Ventures, Third Kind Venture Capital, XG Ventures  Previous Investment: $0.1 million  Founded: 2015

Groupon Raises $250m.   The publically-traded Chicago-based local deals marketplace received a strategic investment by Comcast’s (“independent”) investment fund Atairos, via unsecured, senior convertible notes. In addition to the investment, Comcast Corporation will work with Groupon to identify and implement potential strategic partnership opportunities, exploring the opportunity to combine Groupon’s local expertise with Comcast’s subscriber and advertiser network.

Announced: 04/05/16  Stage: Convertible Debt  Participating Investor: Atairos Founded: 2007

Jinn Raises $7.5m. The London, UK-based mobile app allows consumers to place orders for on-demand delivery. Users can order any item that can be purchased in the local area for delivery within an hour. The service operates 24/7 and is currently available in London and Manchester. Jinn will use the funds to expand to more cities in the United Kingdom and Southern Europe.

Announced: 04/05/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Samaipata Ventures (lead), Bull Partners, Elderstreet Investments  Previous Investment: $2.3 million  Founded: 2013

Petoo Raises $1.0m. The Bangalore, India-based meal delivery service offers traditional Indian dishes for online ordering. All dishes are easily accessible and boxed so that they are convenient to eat. Petoo currently operates in 20 locations in Bangalore. The funding will be used for food research and for expansion to more areas in Bangalore as well as Chennai and Hyderabad.

Announced: 04/07/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Axilor Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded:  2015

Reserve Raises Undisclosed Investment from Diageo Technology Ventures.  The New York, NY-based dining concierge service has growth to allow users to find restaurants, make a reservations and mobile pay the bill or split the check at the end of the meal. The round was funded by global liquor brand Diageo and in conjunction with the funding announcement, the company announced the acquisition of Dash (see above in M&A section). The company intends to use the funds to grow its restaurant presence within the existing seven cities it operates, launch in new cities, expand the userbase and build out more functionality.

Announced: 04/01/16  Stage: Strategic  Participating Investor: Diageo Technology Ventures  Previous Investment: $17.3 million  Founded: 2014

Juicero Raises $70m. The San Francisco, CA-based smart kitchen company produces internet-connected kitchen appliances, beginning with a $700 smart juicer. The appliance cold presses juice from packs (a similar idea to Keurig cups) that customers buy from Juicero that contain a mix of fruits and vegetables. Each pack has a QR code that allows the company to track which flavors are used the most and in what quantity, and allows the app to suggest other pack flavors to the consumer that will provide them a nutritional balance. While much of the world is going crazy about this as an overly-expensive residential product (myself included), it may become more prevalent as a commercial product, as the Verge reports that Le Pain Quotidien has already ordered 21 juicers to be placed in eight of its Los Angeles locations.

Announced: 03/31/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: ARTIS Ventures (lead), Abstract Ventures, Acre Venture Partners, Aspiration Growth, Campbell Soup Company, First Beverage Group, GV, Interplay Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Thrive Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Vast Ventures  Previous Investment: $20.5 million (or, according to the New York Times, $50 million)  Founded: 2013

Frichti Raises $13.4m. The Paris, France-based meal delivery service allows customers to order lunches, dinners, and weekend brunches for on-demand delivery. Meals are prepared by Frichti chefs in the company’s kitchens and are delivered cold with instructions to reheat at home. Frichti’s plans for the investment include uder acquisition via word of mouth systems and referral programs as well as expansion within and outside of France.

Announced: 03/30/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Alven Capital, Idinvest Partners Previous Investment: $1.1 million  Founded: June 2015

DoorDash Raises $127m. The San Francisco, CA-based delivery service works with local businesses, including restaurants, to deliver items and food to customers for a flat fee. DoorDash currently operates in 22 urban areas in the United States and Canada. The company reports the investment will be used to expand “both across the U.S. and beyond”.

Announced: 03/22/16  Valuation: $717 million Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital (lead), Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Wellcome Trust, Y Combinator  Previous Investment: $59.7 million  Founded: 2013

Big Basket Raises $150m. The Bangalore, India-based online grocery store allows consumers to select and order groceries for delivery. Big Basket currently operates in 8 metros and 10 tier-two cities in India and receives over 1 million orders each month. The investment will be used to expand its express delivery service and launch new specialty stores.

Announced: 03/22/16  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Abraaj Group (lead), Ascent Capital Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, International Finance Corporation, Sands Capital Management, Zodius Capital  Previous Investment: $85.8 million  Founded: October 2011

Jolly Food Fellow Raises Undisclosed Seed Funding. The Ahmedabad, India-based mobile app provides a platform for food retail vendors. Vendors can use Jolly Food Fellow for branding, managing customer loyalty, and analytics-led engagement. The company will use the funding for expansion and product development. Currently working with over 50 vendors, the company aims to work with over 500 by the end of this year.

Announced: 03/14/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investor: Janak Parikh  Previous Investment: $300k  Founded: 2015

Marley Spoon Raises $17m. The Berlin, Germany-based ingredient delivery service allows consumers to order cook-at-home recipe box meal kits. The company currently operates in Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, and Australia. The investment will be used for expansion to the west coast of the United States and the east coast of Australia.

Announced: 03/10/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Luxor Capital Group, Kreos Capital, QD Ventures, Lakestar  Previous Investment: $10.5 million  Founded: April 2014

Nom Raises $4.7m. The San Francisco, CA-based platform for video sharing allows amateur and professional chefs and food lovers to create, post, and watch their own food videos. Videos on Nom.com are both live and interactive and are intended to build an online community centered around a mutual interest in food. Notably, the founders of Nom are YouTube cofounder Steve Chen and former YouTube engineering lead Vijay Karunamurthy. The funding was announced with the company’s public launch.

Announced: 03/09/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Investors: Corey Lee, Jared Leto, Khosla Ventures, Park Jae-sang, SV Angel, WI Harper Group  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2014

NinjaCart Raises $3m.The Bangalore, India-based mobile app provides a platform for farmers and supermarkets/retailers to connect. Currently, NinjaCart supplies over 15 tons of fruits and vegetables to over 120 retailers each month, and is growing at a rate of 30% weekly. The company will use the funds to expand its team and invest in supply chain infrastructure and technology.

Announced: 03/07/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Accel, M&S Partners, Qualcomm Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2015

Eight Days Raises $30.7m. The China-based online grocery store, also known as 8Dol.com, allows college students to purchase groceries online for delivery to their campuses. The store website also includes a social media platform through which students can share photos. Eight Days currently operates in 50 cities and 1200 universities in China, with 100 convenience stores in addition to campus locations. The funds will be used to expand to over 2000 colleges and 1000 convenience stores.

Announced: 03/03/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Longliqi Group, Jiangsu Suda Tiangong Venture Capital  Previous Investment: “Tens of Millions of Dollars”  Founded: 2012

Hungryroot Raises $3.7m. The New York, NY-based stovetop-ready meal delivery service allows consumers to purchase healthy meal kits for on-demand delivery. All of the foods and ingredients produced by Hungryroot are gluten free and entirely vegetable based. Currently, products are available on FreshDirect and Amazon in addition to the Hungryroot site. The investment will be used for expansion, developing new products, and hiring.

Announced: 03/01/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners (lead), Crosslink Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, KarpReilly, Lerer Hippeau Ventures  Previous Investment: $2.0 million  Founded: 2015

PARTNERSHIPS

The New York Times Partners with Chef’d to deliver recipe and meal kits.

Instacart Partners with PlateJoy to deliver groceries based on personal diet and nutrition recommendations.

OpenRice Partners with Foodpanda to bring on-demand delivery to app users in Hong Kong.

Zomato Partners with Snapdeal to simplify online ordering of meals.

Ibotta Partners with Anheuser-Busch to provide cash back on beer purchases.

Kitchen Brains Partners with HotSchedules to connect cooking appliances and platforms and point-of-sale systems with cloud-based technology.

NatureBox Partners with Target to Expand Retail Distribution.

Twitter Integrates with Yelp for Location Tags in the UK and Japan.

Hyatt Centric Partners with GrubHub to Help Reinvent Room Service

TouchBistro and iZettle Partner on Restaurant Payment Services.

Gourmia Partners with Ready for Sky and Freshub to Reinvent the Smart Kitchen

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

 

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and last month’s round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March and April 2016 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: Summer 2016

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This is a guest post written by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors; it highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

While there were a number of interesting deals this summer, overall activity was relatively light. The last three months brought in approximately $758 million in funding for 51 private companies across the global food tech sector, broken down into $165 million, $170 million and $423 million for June, July and August, respectively.

Year-over-year the number of funded companies during this 3-month period was down 21% while total funding dollars were down 56%.  Excluding later-stage deals from the data ($100+ million), the average funding amount per deal during the three month period was ~$8 million versus ~$14 million the previous year.

There was a clear narrative around organic, clean eating and health, with half of the acquisitions in this category and a third of the funding dollars supporting the theme. Building upon that, the online grocery sector dominated the headlines this summer with a variety of cash infusions, consolidation, and rebirth. The delivery category (which includes grocery) continues to maintain momentum representing 80% of the capital and over half of the deals during the three months.

Year to date (tracking the first eight months of the year), overall M&A activity was down by about 18% versus the same period last year, a trend which was definitely reflected this summer as there were no M&A deals in July and only eleven deals in June and August (versus 21 during the same 3-month period last year).

Perhaps reflecting a shift in corporate strategy towards investment over full-on acquisition, there have been a number of strategic investments in recent months.  For example, while Yelp has made five acquisitions to build out its platform, it decided to make its first and only (publicly announced) strategic investment in NoWait this summer.

Among the various global food/restaurant ordering rollups, there were a couple of geographic deals in play as Takeaway.com scooped up Just Eat’s and Netherland/Belgium operations, Foodpanda merged hellofood with Hungerstation in Saudi Arabia, and ifood was further funded by Just Eat and Movile to expand deeper into Mexico. Separately, a new acquirer in the U.S. online grocery space, Direct Eats, made two acquisitions since May, promoting speculation that it may continue to acquire smaller regional players for scale.

M&A

Direct Eats Acquires Wholeshare. The San Francisco, CA-based sustainable and organic foods online marketplace will augment Direct Eats’ customer base. While Wholeshare was able to build a strong offering and loyal customer base, the company struggled to scale. Wholeshare is the second acquisition for Direct Eats this year, as the company acquired Abe’s Market, a similar online marketplace, in May.

Announced: 08/29/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $2.0m  Founded: 2009

Waitr Acquires Requested. The Sacramento, CA-based restaurant booking app will provide Waitr, a Lake Charles, LA-based restaurant management system focused on delivery/takeout service, with in-restaurant dining and booking options. According to Street Fight, Requested’s key innovation is a “dynamic pricing system that allows restaurants to offer deals and negotiate directly with customers on slow day”. Waitr will incorporate these elements into its present, flat-rate restaurant delivery app. Currently, Waitr operates in over 1,000 cities, and will expand to Roseville, CA with the acquisition. In addition, Requested’s team will continue in Sacramento, while co-founder Sonny Mayugba will become Waitr’s chief marketing officer.

Announced: 08/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

Tripadvisor Acquires CityMaps. The New York, NY-based map app will allow Tripadvisor to enhance its mobile map features and deepen its location-based activities marketing. CityMaps functions as a travel guide within a real-time navigation map app where users are able to view restaurants, attractions, and events around them, and create a personalized map based on their interests. With the acquisition, CityMaps will continue as a standalone business.

Announced: 08/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $12.0m  Founded: November 2010

Hooch Acquires Tipsy. The Tempe, AZ based nightlife app offers discounted drinks and other perks to members, with over one third of their premium members being active subscribers for over a year. According to Phoenix Business Journal, in addition the userbase, Tipsy has a venue dashboard Hooch is interested in taking advantage of.

Announced: 08/25/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: None  Founded: 2015

Cooked Chicago Acquires Chefmade. The Chicago, IL-based meal delivery services will join to offer weekly meal delivery. Both companies provide consumers with a menu from which they can select meals for the week. Deliveries are made once a week. Cooked will continue to offer Chefmade meals as menu options along with their own menu items. In addition, half of Chefmade’s team will join Cooked, and co-founder Sarah Arel will become Cooked’s director of creative growth.

Announced: 08/24/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Foodpanda Acquires Hungerstation, Merges it with Hellofood. The Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia-based online platform for meal ordering and delivery will allow FoodPanda, Rocket Internet’s on-demand food delivery company, to expand its current Middle East operations (Hellofood). Foodpanda also operates two other food delivery companies in the region– 24h in the UAE, and Otlob in Egypt. Together, the combined company will reach 2000 restaurants in 30 cities. HungerStation will continue standalone operations.

Announced: 08/09/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2012

Takeaway.com Acquires JustEat’s Netherlands and Belgium operations. The London, UK-based online meal ordering service has sold its Belgium and Netherlands businesses to Takeaway.com. an Amsterdam, Netherlands-based online meal delivery service. The deal was priced at €22.5 million ($25.3 million USD). Just Eat sold the businesses due to less profitability in those countries and will focus on its other operations. This comes as Takeaway.com is gearing up for an IPO in September, potentially valuing the company at over a billion dollars.

Announced: 08/02/16  Terms: $25.3m  Previous Investment: $89.0m  Founded: October 2000

PaidEasy Acquires Happy Any Hour. The New York–based mobile app, which helps bars and restaurants solve excess capacity through time-based, localized happy hours, was acquired by PaidEasy, a New York-based mobile payment app for restaurants. As TechCrunch reports, the new product and technology will add “an element of discovery” to the PaidEasy platform.

Announced: 08/02/16  Terms: Not Disclosed (Cash and Stock)  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: November 2014

Door to Door Organics Merges with Relay Foods. The Louisville, CO-based Door to Door Organics will merge with the Charlottesville, VA-based Relay foods to create an online grocery store delivering to 63 markets in 18 states, focused on natural, organic and locally sourced products. The company will maintain offices in Louisville and Charlottesville and will continue to operate as separate, customer-facing businesses until the integration is complete; the new brand is expected to be announced later this year. The merger also includes a $10 million equity financing deal from The Arlon Group (a previous Door to Door Organics investor).

Announced: 06/08/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Door to Door Organics – $38.8m; Relay Foods – $13.3m  Founded: Door to Door Organics – 1997; Relay Foods – 2007

Jugnoo Acquires SabKuchFresh. The Chandigarh, India-based fresh produce delivery startup will allow Jugnoo, a Chandigarh-based ride hailing app, to expand its grocery delivery options and improve logistics, and quality of the deliveries. SabKuchFresh has a relationship with over 100 farmers and has built a network of B2B and B2C users. Earlier this year Jugnoo relaunched its hyperlocal grocery delivery business ‘Fatafat’ in a bid to strengthen and diversify its delivery business. Jugnoo plans to expand delivery to Guragon in the next month and 30 other cities in the next year.

Announced: 06/01/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Direct Eats Acquires Abe’s Market. The Chicago-based natural foods marketplace will expand the brand offering and userbase for relative newcomer Direct Eats, which is focused on building a leading ecommerce venture featuring better-for-you products in both the food and health and beauty categories. Abe’s Market will be rebranded as Direct Eats, moving the new website and platform. In contrast to competitor Thrive Market, Direct Eats does not charge shipping and does not require a membership fee.

Announced: 05/18/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $19.1 million  Founded: 2009

FUNDING

FoodByUs Raises $2m. The Sydney, Australia-based online platform allows users to buy and sell local, homemade foods. Home cooks can apply to be makers on the platform, which allows them to sell their food products with business and ecommerce support from FoodByUs. Consumers can view items listed by makers on the platform and place orders, which can be picked up or delivered. Since launching in August, the company has 80 makers offering 500 meals. FoodByUs will use the funds for marketing and sales. The company also plans to expand to other cities in Australia.

Announced: 08/31/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Kadima Group  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: February 2016

Velocity Raises $22.5m. The London, UK-based digital restaurant booking and payment platform is focused on premium restaurants worldwide. The app can also be used for payment at the restaurants. Velocity currently operates in London, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The company has made three acquisitions thus far and plans to use the investment to expand to 29 cities by 2020.

Announced: 08/29/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: DIG Investments (lead) Previous Investment: $16.4 million  Founded: April 2014

Runnr Raises $7m. The Bangalore, India-based online delivery platform allows consumers to order restaurant meals for on-demand delivery. The company is the merged product of Roadrunnr and TinyOwl. Runnr currently operates in Bangalore and Mumbai, with plans to open in Delhi.

Announced: 08/29/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners   Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (formed via merger)  Founded: February 2015

HappyFresh Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia-based online grocery store allows consumers to order groceries for on-demand, under an hour delivery. HappyFresh shoppers shop and make deliveries, while consumers can track the status of their delivery from the HappyFresh app. HappyFresh has closed its operations in Taiwan and the Philippines, but continues to operate in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The funding amount remains undisclosed, but is larger than HappyFresh’s $12 million Series A funding round from last year.

Announced: 08/29/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Samena Capital (lead), Sinar Mas Digital Ventures, Vertex Ventures  Previous Investment: $12.0 million    Founded: October 2014

Vivanda Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Baltimore, MD-based technology company, which was founded by group of McCormick employees and partners then spun out in 2014, uses FlavorPrint technology to create personalized flavor profiles based on a person’s preferences for different tastes, flavors, and textures. Companies can use the technology to understand consumers’ preferences and create personalized web content  based on their preferences. Customers such as Serious Eats already use the platform to help analyze recipes.  Notably, this strategic investment comes from software multinational SAP, which states the investment will “further enable food companies using solutions enabled by SAP HANA to leverage the FlavorPrint technology and data collected to engage and connect with consumers in more personalized and relevant ways”. Vivanda will use the investment for growth, including hiring, and aims to double its customers in the next 6 months.

Announced: 08/26/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: SAP  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (Spun out of McCormick)  Founded: December 2014

Prepd Raises $2.78m. The San Francisco, CA-based company launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to create a lunchbox and mobile app pair which helps consumers eat healthily and track calorie and nutrient intake. Users prepare recipes from the app, which are designed to fit perfectly in the lunchbox. They can then use the app to record their exact intake and use their compiled personal data points to manage their health and weight.

Announced: 08/24/16  Stage: Crowdfunding  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Zzungry Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Bangalore, India-based online restaurant allows consumers to order chef-made Indian food for on-demand delivery. Zzungry operates out of 6 kitchens in Bangalore and changes its menu offerings weekly. At present, Zzungry delivers over 150 orders per day. The investment will be used for expansion and new kitchens, building revenue channels, and marketing.

Announced: 08/22/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Madhusudhan Jujare, Satish Vasudeva  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: August 2015

Sample6 Raises $12.7m. The Cambridge, MA-based synthetic biology company uses its technology to detect unwanted and harmful bacteria in food. Their Listeria detector uses light and an illumination box to reveal contaminated bioparticles in food products. The detectors are simple to use and fast-detecting, with results in 6 hours. The investment will be used to expand technology to include detection of Salmonella and E coli. In addition, with the investment, Acre Venture partner Sam Kass will join the Sample6 board of directors.

Announced: 08/22/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Acre Venture Partners (lead), Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, Canaan Partners, Valley Oak Investments  Previous Investment: $14.8 million  Founded: March 2013

Announced: 08/18/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Andy Murray  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: January 2014

Zero Cater Raises $4.1m. The San Francisco, CA-based catering service deliver meals to office employee groups. Meals can be ordered from local chefs, restaurants, and food trucks. ZeroCater currently operates in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Austin, serving over 1,000 companies tens of thousands of meals each day. The funding will be used to expand product and engineering teams.

Announced: 08/17/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Romulus Capital (lead), Struck Capital  Previous Investment: $1.5 million  Founded: 2009

Glovo Raises $5.6m. The Barcelona, Spain-based mobile app operates similarly to Postmates and Jinn. Consumers can use the app to order any item available in their city for on-demand delivery in under one hour. Users can place their order, track the status of their order, and rate service following delivery. Glovo currently has over 300 partners and 200,000 users. The investment will be used to consolidate the company’s presence in Spain.

Announced: 08/11/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Caixa Capital Risc, Bonsai Venture Capital SCR, Entrée Capital, Seaya Ventures, Antai Venture Builder  Previous Investment: $2.3 million  Founded: March 2015

Nowait Raises $8m. The Pittsburgh, PA-based mobile app allows users to get in line at restaurants before arriving. Users can view wait times and join waitlists from the app; the app notifies them when their table is ready. Nowait operates in 4,000 restaurants in all 50 US States. The strategic investment from Yelp will expand Yelp’s restaurant platform capabilities and make Nowait reservations available directly from restaurants’ Yelp pages.

Announced: 08/11/16 Stage: Growth  Participating Institutional Investors: Yelp  Previous Investment: $14.0 million  Founded: 2010

9KaCha Raises $10m. The China-based mobile app uses label recognition to provide users with information about their wine. Users take a picture of their wine bottle’s label, upload it on the app, and then receive information. The investment from Haier will incorporate 9KaCha’s recognition technology into Haier’s new smart wine cabinet. The cabinet will adapt conditions to the type of wine being stored.

Announced: 08/11/16 Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Haier  Previous Investment: $1.8 million  Founded: 2012

Fruitday Raises $15m. The Shanghai, China-based ecommerce company for produce offers imported fruit for purchase. The company has visions of becoming a broader ecommerce platform for fresh food, and as such, according to Produce Report, in addition to the funding announcement, the company Fruitday declared that it would form a strategic cooperation with Lactalis, which is one of the biggest dairy companies in the world.

Announced: 08/09/16  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Fund  Previous Investment: $80 -$100 million  Founded: 2009

Deliveroo Raises $275m. The London, UK-based meal delivery service allows consumers to order meals from restaurants for on-demand delivery. Deliveroo currently operates in 12 countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Its competitors include UberEats, Just Eat, and Delivery Hero. The company will use the investment for expansion and new services, such as alcohol delivery and RooBox—a service that provides delivery-only kitchens for restaurants.

Announced: 08/05/16  Valuation: Over $1 billion Stage: Series E  Participating Institutional Investors: Bridgepoint (lead), DST Global (lead), General Catalyst Partners (lead), Felix Capital, Greenoaks Capital, Nokia Growth Partners  Previous Investment: $199.6 million  Founded: February 2013

GrubMarket Raises $20m. The Newark, CA-based online farmers market allows consumers to order organic, fresh food for delivery. GrubMarket offers meats, fish, and produce directly from farmers. Bulk ordering is also available for offices and restaurants. The investment will be used for marketing and expansion.

Announced: 08/04/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: FJ Labs, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Riverhead Capital, Danhua Capital, GGV Capital, Global Founders Capital, Sound Ventures  Previous Investment: $12.1 million  Founded: February 2014

Drizly Raises $15m. The Boston, MA-based platform for alcohol delivery allows consumers to order beer, wine, and spirits for on-demand delivery. Consumers can also place orders with up to 48 hours for delivery by using Drizly Connect, which launched this summer. Drizly currently operates in 23 cities and has plans to expand to 30 by the end of this year. The funding will be used for marketing and to expand the team. In August it was also noted that spirits producer Diageo indirectly invested in Drizzly’s round last year via First Beverage Group.

Announced: 08/04/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Polaris Partners   Previous Investment: $17.8 million  Founded: July 2012

City Pantry Raises $1.46m. The London, UK-based catering platform allows users to order food for office groups, events, and meetings. Users can choose from two offerings—a one-time event order or a subscription meal plan for recurring events. Food can be ordered from chefs, restaurants, and street vendors, and is delivered by City Pantry. The investment will be used for expansion in the UK and Europe.

Announced: 08/03/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Angel CoFund, London Co-Investment Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2013

Petoo Raises $500k. The Bangalore, India-based online restaurant delivers prepackaged Indian meals to consumers. The company also does food research to explore their food’s freshness and create methods for keeping food fresh without refrigeration or preservatives. Their food offerings include breakfast foods that stay fresh for 1 month, lunch and dinner products fresh for 3 months, and desserts fresh for 6 months. Petoo will use the funding for food research and implementing its new products.

Announced: 08/03/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: LetsVenture  Previous Investment: $1.0 million  Founded: 2015

Peek Raises $10m. The San Francisco, CA-based online platform allows users to find and book local tastings, activities and tours. The mobile-first platform features listings, reviews, and booking functionality for consumers, as well as Peek Pro, to help tour operators manage their business online and via mobile. The investment will be used to grow the company and team and to increase partnerships. In addition to the funding, Peek will partner with Yelp, so that companies can have consumers book directly from their Yelp pages.

Announced: 07/28/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Investors: Pete Flint, David Bonderman, Ray Lane, Gigi Pritzker, Michael Pucker, Eric Schmidt, Jack Dorsey, Carl Sparks  Previous Investment: $6.9 million  Founded: 2012

Shipt raises $20m. The Birmingham, AL-based online grocery delivery service provides on-demand delivery in under 1 hour. Customers purchase a Shipt membership which allows them to place orders online or through a mobile app. Shipt currently operates in 27 cities in the southern United States, including cities in Florida, Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee,  Arizona, and Ohio. Shipt will use the funds to expand, develop grocery partnerships, and add alcohol delivery to its offerings.

Announced: 07/27/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Greycroft Partners, e.ventures, Harbert Growth Partners  Previous Investment: $5.2 million  Founded: 2014

Good Eggs Raises $15m. The San Francisco, CA-based online grocery delivery service delivers organic and local meats, dairy products, and produce to consumers. After having to shut down out of state operations and fire 140 employees late last year, Good Eggs has found a second life, currently operating solely in the San Francisco region. The investment will be used to expand Good Eggs in the Bay Area and subsequently expand again throughout the United States.

Announced: 07/27/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: Index Ventures (lead), Obvious Ventures, S2G Ventures  Previous Investment: $31.5 million  Founded: July 2011

Sun Basket Raises $15m. The San Francisco, CA-based healthy meal kit delivery service offers organic meal kits with options for paleo and gluten-free diets. Kits come with simple recipes and ingredients that have been pre-portioned according to the recipe. Sun Basket aims to make organic products more accessible for consumers. The company currently serves 34 US states. They will use the investment to open a third distribution center, which will allow the company to reach 98% of the US—“more zip codes than the largest grocery store chain in the US.”

Announced: 07/26/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Accolade partners (lead), Baseline Ventures, Founders Circle Capital, PivotNorth Capital, Relevance Capital, Shea Ventures, Vulcan Capital  Previous Investment: $11.6 million  Founded: April 2014

Innit Raises $18m. The Redwood City, CA-based connected kitchen platform uses technology, nutrition, and food science to make cooking easier. Innit smart kitchen products identify and measure food ingredients and suggests recipes and cooking techniques. The investment will be used to accelerate growth. The company recently announced partnerships with Good Housekeeping, Pirch and Whirlpool Corporation to enable advanced automated cooking on their kitchen appliances.

Announced: 07/21/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $25.0 million  Founded: September 2013

iFood Raises $30m. The Sao Paulo, Brazil-based online platform for food delivery allows consumers to order restaurant food for on-demand delivery. Users can place orders online or via mobile app. At present, iFood makes about 1.7 million deliveries per month. The ongoing strategic investment from Movile and Just Eat will help iFood expand into Mexico through SinDelantal, the largest food delivery service in Mexico, which was acquired by Just Eat in February. As the press release notes, iFood recently acquired Hellofood Brazil from JUST EAT and also acquired US-based SpoonRocket‘s technology, with plans to harness its logistics backend to optimize delivery time and enhance the restaurant-to-consumer experience.

Announced: 07/20/16  Stage: Series F  Participating Institutional Investors: Movile, Just Eat  Previous Investment: $61.9 million  Founded: May 2011

Kiip Raises $12m. The San Francisco-based mobile rewards network, platform and app works with brands such as McDonalds and  Pepsi to engage their audiences by rewarding them with free samples, special offers, virtual currency and other items during in-app events called “moments”. The company will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts.

Announced: 07/19/16  Stage: Series C  Participating Institutional Investors: North Atlantic Capital (lead), U.S. Cellular  Previous Investment: $20.0 million  Founded: July 2010

Zuppler Raises $300k.  The Conshohocken, PA-based software producer provides software for restaurants that can be used to manage ordering and delivery. Currently, Zuppler’s software is used by over 1600 restaurants in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the UK. The investment will be used to further develop its technology, point of sale and loyalty integrations, sales and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 07/18/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: SRI Capital  Previous Investment: $1.6 million  Founded: November 2008

LifeSum Raises $10m. The Stockholm-based digital health startup tracks what users eat as well as their exercise. The company has 15 million users and according to TechCrunch, is seeking partnerships with organizations in other sectors, including food, fitness, healthcare, DNA and pharmaceuticals. The company will use the funds to build out the team and product development as it expands in Europe and the United States.

Announced: 07/18/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Nokia Growth Partners (lead), Bauer Media, Draper Esprit, SparkLabs Global Ventures  Previous Investment: $6.7 million  Founded: November 2008

Benchmark Intelligence Raises $500k. The Fresno, CA-based restaurant analytics startup aids restaurant and retail chain owners in understanding why certain locations perform better than others. According to Fresno Business Journal, Benchmark Intelligence collects data from three main sources — voice-of-the-customer SMS text messaging surveys, social media reviews and field study audits. The company will use the funds to build out the team.

Announced: 07/15/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: San Joaquin Capital  Previous Investment: $70k  Founded: August 2014

Twigly Raises $600K. The Guragon, India-based online meal delivery service allows consumers to order fresh meals for on-demand delivery.  The menu is updated weekly and all meals are prepared at Twigly’s own central kitchens. Presently, Twigly operates 2 kitchens in Guragon and delivers 150 orders per day. With the investment, the company plans to expand to Delhi and Bangalore and deliver 1000 orders per day.

Announced: 07/13/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Tracxn labs (lead), Gaurav Bhalotia, Hyderabad Angels, Kunal Shah  Previous Investment: $0.2 million  Founded: August 2015

Jumbotail Raises $2m. The Bangalore, India-based online food and groceries marketplace provides a platform for wholesalers to sell their products and services online. According to Deal Street Asia, Jumbotail works with wholesalers in India using technology, data science and design and employs approximately 50 people.

Announced: 07/13/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Nexus Venture Partners  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: November 2015

Freshly Raises $21m. The New York, NY–based meal delivery service provides fully prepared healthy meals. Users create a weekly subscription and select meals from Freshly’s menu options. All meals are delivered at the start of the week ready to be reheated. Freshly currently delivers 250,000 meals per month to consumers in 28 states. The funding will be used to expand to all 50 U.S. states and to agressively grow its technology team.

Announced: 07/12/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Insight Venture Partners (lead), Highland Capital Partners, Slow Ventures, White Star Capital  Previous Investment: $9.0 million  Founded: January 2012

Holachef Raises $1.95m. The Mumbai, India-based mobile and web app allows users to order chef-cooked meals for on-demand delivery. Holachef’s menu is changed daily, offering about 50 choices each day. Currently, the company delivers 100,000 orders per month.

Announced: 07/08/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Kalaari Capital (Lead), India Quotient  Previous Investment: $3.4 million  Founded: 2014

Quickli Raises Bridge Funding. The Guragon, India-based mobile app allows consumers to place orders for delivery. Users can order food, groceries, and healthcare/pharmaceutical products. All orders are delivered on the same day they are placed. Quickli currently operates in Delhi and fills 2000 orders per day. The company will use the funding to expand to new locations, including Bangalore.

Announced: 07/07/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: 500 Startups, AVG Group  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2015

BevSpot Raises $11m.  The Boston, MA-based mobile platform allows businesses to easily manage liquor and alcohol sales and inventory. BevSpot is currently used by over 400 companies in over 40 of the United States. These include restaurants, bars, nightclubs and hotels. The investment will be used for product development and expansion.

Announced: 07/07/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Bain Capital Ventures  Previous Investment: $6.1 million  Founded: March 2014

Cookoo Raises $300k. The London, England-based meal delivery service offers healthy, home-cooked meals for delivery. All meals come ready-to-eat and microwave re-heatable. The investment will be used to add more cooks and expand Cookoo’s offerings.

Announced: 07/05/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Grab Raises $2m in Debt Financing. The Mumbai, India-based logistics services platform provides delivery services for restaurants, food tech platforms, groceries, ecommerce platforms, and banks. To date, Grab has made over 5 million deliveries for over 12 thousand merchants in 10 cities. The funds will be used to further develop its technology and roll out additional service verticals.

Announced: 07/04/16  Stage: Debt Financing  Strategic  Investor: Aramex Ventures  Previous Investment: $1.0 million  Founded: 2012

ProducePay Raises $2.5m. The Los Angeles, CA-based online platform for payment solutions connects farmers with cash flow earlier in the farming and distributing process than other payment methods. Instead of having to wait for produce to be distributed and sold to receive payment, farmers are able to receive payment the day after produce is shipped. To date, ProducePay has financed $80 million of produce from farmers in the United States, Mexico, Chile, and Honduras.

Announced: 06/29/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Menlo Ventures, Arena Ventures, CoVentures, Red Bear Angels, Social Leverage  Previous Investment: $1.4 million  Founded: December 2014

Ancera Raises $8.9m. The Branford, CT-based food safety technology company develops hardware and software to test food for contaminants such as salmonella and e.coli. Ancera’s product Piper is a small instrument that can detect salmonella a food sample within 1 to 8 hours. This contrasts with tradition testing methods which can take up to 5 days. The funds will be used for hiring, commercial production and distribution of products, and for research to create products to detect other food contaminants like e.coli.

Announced: 06/28/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Glass Capital Management (lead), Bulldog Innovation Group, Metabiota, Packers Sanitation Service  Previous Investment: $1.3 million  Founded: 2012

Farm Hill Raises $3m. The Redwood City, CA-based meal delivery service provides healthy meals to companies and office workers. Customers can order individually or as an office group, with a lower delivery payment rate for group orders. Farm Hill makes and distributes all of its meals, and includes options for all diets (including paleo, vegetarian, vegan options). Farm Hill currently operates in Silicon Valley. The investment will be used for expansion to San Francisco, as well as for new technology to make delivery and kitchen operations more efficient.

Announced: 06/27/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Investors: Eagle Cliff Partners, Liberty City Ventures, Soma Capital, StartX, Zalmi Duchman  Previous Investment: $1.0 million  Founded: June 2013

Thrive Market Raises $111m. The Los Angeles, CA-based online organic grocery store offers wholesale organic foods. Users pay an annual membership fee to purchase from Thrive, while the company offers a free membership to a low-income family for each paid membership on the site. The company plans to use the funding for growth—expanding infrastructure, marketing, and creating new written and video content.

Announced: 06/27/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Invus, Cross Culture Ventures, e.ventures, Greycroft Partners  Previous Investment: $58.0 million  Founded: 2013

FareWell Raises $8.5m. The San Francisco, CA-based online program for lifestyle and diet intervention seeks to help people with elevated body mass indexes or chronic weight-related diseases. The 16-week program includes a diet program with video tutorials, meal plans, shopping lists, and plant-based recipes. In addition, participants have access to health coaches, physicians, chefs, behavioral psychologists, and dieticians through the program. The funds will be used to launch the pilot program.

Announced: 06/23/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Investors: David Perry  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: May 2015

Eunoia Raises $800k. The Singapore-based restaurant tech platform, Ordr, allows food and beverage businesses to view information from 3rd party apps for menus, ordering, and payment in one consolidated layout. The restaurant can easily process orders and update and sync menus. The technology serves both to combat labor shortage in Singapore with the use of automation and to make serving customers more efficient, mobile-friendly, and profitable.

Announced: 06/17/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Golden Equator Capital  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

CaterWings Raises $6.7m. The London, England-based online catering platform connects businesses with caterers. CaterWings currently operates in Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, London, and Munich. The investment will be used to expand to additional cities in Europe as well as to expand CaterWings’ online presence and improve customer service.

Announced: 06/16/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Tengelmann Ventures, Rocket Internet, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Qloo Raises $4.5m. The New York, NY-based local and cultural discovery platform provides users with recommendations based on their personal preferences. Recommendations encompass 8 categories, including: dining, nightlife, fashion, books, music, film, television, and travel. The investment will be used to increase Qloo’s database and add clients.

Announced: 06/15/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Investors: Barry Sternlicht, Adriaan Ligtenberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pierre Lagrange  Previous Investment: $3.0 million  Founded: April 2011

Ava Raises $3m. The Boston, MA-based mobile nutrition coach app allows consumers to track food consumption and receive personalized nutritional feedback. Users take a picture of the food they eat and text it to Ava to receive health information. Caloric value is calculated using image recognition software. The investment will be used to develop technology and expand Ava’s nutrition science team.

Announced: 06/14/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: DCM Ventures (lead), Innovation Endeavors, Khosla Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Khanagadi Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Jaipur, India-based mobile app allows train commuters to order food for on-train delivery. Khanagadi currently operates in 200 railway stations in India, and serves 100 to 150 orders per day. Khanagadi will use the funding for expansion, marketing, and hiring.

Announced: 06/11/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: 50KVentures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2015

Door to Door Organics / Relay Foods Raises $10m. In connection with the merger, the combined company received additional funding from Door to Door Organic’s previous investor, The Arlon Group.

Announced: 06/08/16  Stage: Growth  Participating Institutional Investor: The Arlon Group

Ordermentum Raises $2.5m. The Sydney, Australia-based B2B order management platform allows food and beverage retailers to manage and place orders with suppliers. Suppliers can also use the platform to receive and manage orders and payment. Currently, Ordermentum is used by over 3000 businesses in Australia. The investment will be used to grow the company.

Announced: 06/07/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Capital Markets Technologies  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2014

SevenFifty Raises $8.5m. The New York City-based online wholesale platform for alcohol distributors is focused on modernizing and streamlining the wholesale alcohol supply chain by connecting the beverage alcohol industry with a platform that helps distributors and buyers interact.

Announced: 06/01/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Formation 8, Pritzker Group Venture Capital  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2012

WISErg Raises $4m. The Issaquah, WA-based technology producer provides restaurants and grocery stores with a simple, sustainable method to recycle food scraps. WISErg’s Harvester machine uses collected scraps of food to make a liquid fertilizer for agricultural farmers. In addition to creating fertilizer, the machine collects and reports data on what foods are thrown away that stores can use to manage their products. The funds will be used to scale operations on the west coast.

Announced: 06/01/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $44.6 million  Founded: September 2009

PARTNERSHIPS

Ibotta Partners with Button, Jet, and Doordash to offer in-app purchases.

Toast Partners With Chowly to integrate online ordering systems with restaurant point of sale systems.

Square Partners with TouchBistro and Vend to increase payment and point of sale options for restaurants.

Olo Partners with Conversable to offer online ordering through messaging apps.

Yelp Partners with Nowait (and invests $8m) to add restaurant wait times and waitlists to its offerings.

Square Partners with Upserve to offer loans to small businesses in the restaurant industry.

TouchBistro Partners with 7Shifts to simplify restaurant employee scheduling and management.

Google India Partners with Zomato and Swiggy to allow consumers to order from restaurants directly from their Google search or app.

Instacart Partners with Food Network to deliver groceries and recipe ingredients.

Publix Partners With Instacart to deliver groceries in Miami.

PlateJoy Partners with Instacart to make recipe ingredients available via delivery.

Sprouts Farmers Markets Partners with Amazon Prime to deliver fresh groceries in under one hour.

Marley Spoon Partners with Martha Stewart to deliver meal kits with ingredients and directions for Martha Stewart’s recipes.

RedBrick Partners with Monj to provide information about food and behavioral change for people with prediabetes and chronic conditions.

HookLogic Partners with Instacart, Fresh Direct, and Drugstore.com to increase digital sales and marketing of consumer packaged goods.

Uber Partners with Foursquare to allow users to find locations by name instead of street address.

Retail Control Systems Partners With Toast to provide an all-in-one software for a restaurant management and point-of-sale system.

Chowly and Revel Systems Partner to connect online restaurant orders with restaurant point-of-sale systems.

foodjunky.com Partners with Yelp to provide online ordering and delivery directly from Yelp pages.

Monsanto Partners with Microsoft to fund agricultural technology development in Brazil.

Stuart Partners with Just Eat to offer on-demand delivery services and drivers to restaurants.

Alibaba Partners with Menusifu to begin use of mobile payment app Alipay in the United States.

Zomato Partners with Helpchat to offer in-app online food ordering.

Peek Partners with Yelp to offer booking directly through Yelp platform.

Cisco Partners with H-FARM to launch a food tech accelerator.

INDUSTRY LAANDSCAPE

As the Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

 

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and May’s round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: Summer 2016 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: September 2016

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This is a monthly guest post written by consulting firm Rosenheim Advisors; it highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

The food tech ecosystem brought in over $665 million of capital in September, with a little over half attributed to the IPO of Dutch food delivery marketplace Takeaway.com. There were 17 private companies who announced funding during the month, raising close to $300 million in total private capital, half of which were U.S.-based. Within this, Fresh Direct’s private equity infusion of $189 million was the largest raise during the month.

With six relatively early stage deals announced in September, M&A activity was a bit light but notably international as nearly every acquisition announced took place outside the U.S. Among the larger strategics, Just Eat and Zomato were active acquirers during the month as well as iZettle, a fast-growing mobile payments and POS startup.

While meal delivery, meal kits and grocery continue to be well-represented categories, there was a lot of activity among SaaS-based restaurant ops players, both on the M&A front as well as funding. Top themes included business automation, reservations and point of sale solutions.

M&A

Zomato Acquires Sparse Labs. The Guragon, India-based delivery monitoring technology will allow Zomato to enhance its delivery technology.  Sparse Labs technology allows both the company and customer to view the location and progress of a delivery in real time via mobile app. Zomato will incorporate this technology into its meal delivery services, which rely on individual restaurant’s own delivery teams to complete their orders. With the acquisition, Sparse Labs will become Zomato Trace.

Announced: 09/26/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: July 2014

U-Feast Acquires Pass the Table. As a competitor to U-Feast which offers exclusive weekly “feasts” at different area restaurants, Pass the Table allows consumers to customize their menu and food experience at restaurants. Pass the Table will bring U-Feast 2,000 new customers. With the acquisition, the co-founders of Pass the Table will join U-Feast as a chief experience officer and a member of the board of directors. According to Betakit, in the coming year U-Feast plans to launch a new user interface focusing on “customization and building out its data analytics engine to better target customers”.

Announced: 09/23/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2014

1C Acquires Quick Resto. The Moscow-based SaaS solution for restaurant business automation sold a controlling stake to 1C, a Russian enterprise software giant. According to East-West Digital News, 1C intends to develop the company further with its founders.

Announced: 09/12/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Eating with the Seasons Acquires Bay Area Operations of Farmigo. Farmigo announced this summer that they would sell their delivery operations and continue solely working to develop their software system. Eating with the Seasons has bought the Bay Area operations and will add Farmigo customers to its current local food delivery service under the name Farmhouse Foods. Farmigo is reportedly looking to sell its Seattle and New York operations as well.

Announced: 09/09/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (Divestiture) Founded: 2009

iZettle Acquires intelligentpos. The Edinburgh, UK-based cloud-based point of sale system will enhance iZettle’s mobile point of sale system by integrating advanced features such as stock and table management. According to TechCrunch, intelligentpos, which has been a partner to iZettle for three years, will add another €500 million in processing volume to the €3 billion that iZettle already processes annually. TechCrunch also notes that this may be just the beginning of an acquisition spree for iZettle as the company is company is “looking to go beyond its original payment roots as a route to more recurring revenue and a wider customer base”.

Announced: 09/06/16  Terms: Not Disclosed (Cash and Equity) Previous Investment: $0.8m  Founded: 2013

Just Eat Acquires Partial Assets of Tok Tok Tok. The France-based shopping and delivery service, which operates similarly to Postmates, will provide Just Eat with logistics technology to further manage restaurant delivery drivers. According to TechCrunch, the company had been “on its last legs for a while now”, and with the sale of the assets will be shutting down.

Announced: 09/06/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: $2.0m  Founded: February 2012

Revel Systems Acquires iqPOSitive. The Russian developer of cloud-based automation solutions for restaurant businesses offers tablet-based solutions for a range of process including checkout, employee schedule and inventory management. The transaction reportedly took place in May, with iqPOSitive now operating as a subsidiary of Revel Systems.

Announced: 08/15/16  Terms: Not Disclosed  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

FUNDING

Takeaway.com Raises $368m in IPO. The Amsterdam, Netherlands-based online meal delivery service allows consumers to order meals from restaurants for on-demand delivery. Takeaway provides restaurants with an online ordering platform, and the meals are delivered by restaurants’ own delivery services. Takeaway operates in Europe and parts of Asia. As TechCrunch notes, Takeaway.com priced its shares at €23 each ($25.82), giving the company an enterprise value of around €849 million ($952 million) and a market cap of around €993 million ($1.1 billion).

Announced: 09/30/16  Valuation (at IPO): $1.1 billion  Stage: IPO  Previous Investment: $118.0 million  Founded: 2000

Home Chef Raises $40m. The Chicago, IL-based meal kit delivery service offers a menu of recipe kits updated weekly. Kits include prepared ingredients and directions and can be customized with add-ons including breakfast and fruit baskets. Home Chef has distribution centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta and ships kits throughout the United States. The company delivers over 1.5 million meal kits per month, and has recently increased its team to 600. The investment will be used for growth.

Announced: 09/29/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: L Catterton  Previous Investment: $16.0 million  Founded: June 2013

VMO Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based platform for event scheduling allows customers to book venues for events for free. VMO offers over 650 venues and services, and 20% of those may be booked instantly online. Strategic investor, Rhombus Food, operates popular eateries in Malaysia and saw a stream of bookings to their restaurants from VMO, which led to the funding. VMO plans to use the investment to expand in Malaysia.

Announced: 09/27/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Rhombus Food Holdings  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: August 2014

Fresh Direct Raises $189m. The Long Island City, NY-based grocery delivery service has grown to $600 million in revenue and has been profitable since 2010. In addition to its core order-ahead service, Fresh Direct also operates FoodKick, which delivers food in an hour. Fresh Direct currently operates in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Delaware. The investment will be used for “manufacturing capacity” and expansion to “new geographies.” According to Reuters, the CEO has said it is ‘too early’ to comment on potential plans for either an initial public offering or a sale to a larger competitor.

Announced: 09/26/16  Stage: Private Equity  Participating Institutional Investors: J.P. Morgan Asset Management (lead), AARP, W Capital Partners  Previous Investment: $91.0 million  Founded: July 2002

Umi Kitchen Raises $1.4m. The New York, NY-based mobile app offers a home-cooked meal delivery marketplace. Home cooks apply to cook for the platform, and the app offers users 4 to 7 meal choices each night.  Meals are delivered to consumers by Postmates. Umi Kitchen currently operates in Brooklyn and Manhattan for dinners five days a week.

Announced: 09/26/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: BoxGroup, Version One Ventures, SWTLF Ventures, YEI Innovation Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2015

Chef’s Plate Raises $6m. The Toronto, Canada-based meal kit delivery service allows consumers to select recipes they want to cook and delivers pre-portioned ingredients and directions. Recipe offerings are changed weekly, and each meal takes about 30 minutes to prepare once delivered. Chef’s Plate currently has distribution centers in Ontario and Vancouver. An estimated 200,000 kits are delivered each month, with sales increasing 10 percent week to week.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: Acton Capital Partners (lead), BrandProject, Emil Capital Partners, Linas Matkasse  Previous Investment: $2.0 million  Founded: December 2014

Brava Raises $12m. The Mountain View, CA-based domestic automation company specializing in food and kitchen experiences produces hardware and software to “simplify aspects of daily life”. Brava is currently working on a kitchen appliance, and according to TechCrunch, the product will be “for everyone” and “not a luxury item.” Brava plans to launch their first product sometime next year.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: True Ventures (lead), Aileen Lee, Chris Anderson, Robert H Reid  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Allset Raises $2.35m. The San Francisco, CA-based mobile app allows restaurant patrons to book a table, order their meal, and pay in advance. The aim of the app is to decrease wait time and let consumers finish their restaurant experience in 30 minutes. Allset currently operates in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Manhattan. It operates in over 180 restaurants and serves over 8,500 customers per month. The investment will be used for expansion to Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as product research, development, and marketing.

Announced: 09/20/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Compound (lead), Andreessen Horowitz, FJ Labs, SMRK VC Fund  Previous Investment: $1.5 million  Founded: April 2015

SmartBite Raises Undisclosed Funding. The Petaling Jaya, Malaysia-based food delivery service delivers lunches to working professionals. People who use the service get a text message each morning with a daily menu and reply with their choice of options to select their meal. Currently, SmartBite only offers lunch deliveries, but the company has plans to offer breakfast, snacks, and take-home dinners.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Marna Capital, Noodles, Rhombus  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

Swiggy Raises $15m. The Bangalore, India-based meal delivery service provides restaurant meals to consumers with on-demand delivery. Swiggy claims to have the fastest delivery rates in India, with an average time of 37 minutes. Swiggy currently operates in 8 cities, works with over 9000 restaurants, and processes over 40000 orders per day. The funding will be used to increase delivery efficiency, upgrade technology, and expand the number of restaurants.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Series D  Participating Institutional Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, SAIF Partners  Previous Investment: $60.5 million  Founded: August 2014

FoodChéri raises $6.7m. The Paris, France-based online restaurant offers healthy meals prepared by chefs for delivery. Orders are taken in advance and on-demand, and meals are delivered ready to reheat. FoodCheri currently serves over 1,000 meals per day and operates in Paris and surrounding suburbs. The company will use the funding to expand in France, to increase its staff, and to develop.

Announced: 09/19/16  Stage: Series A  Participating Institutional Investors: 360 Capital Partners (lead), Breega Capital (lead), Samaipata Ventures  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: April 2015

Sourcery Raises $5m. The San Francisco, CA-based app allows restaurants to digitally manage orders, inventory, and costs. Restaurants can scan and upload invoices and receipts, and the Sourcery app will organize the information. Sourcery will use the funds to create an app feature that will allow vendors to send and track invoices and bill customers.

Announced: 09/13/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Marker (lead), Palantir Technologies, Steadfast Venture Capital  Previous Investment: $8.0 million  Founded: 2012

eBev raises $1.5m.  The Sydney, Australia-based online platform allows wholesale wine purchasers to manage their inventories and order directly from wine sellers. The platform includes 22,000 wines and is currently used by 700 venues. eBev aims to have 8,000 venues using the platform in the next year. The investment will be used to expand to Melbourne and other areas, as well as to expand services—including offering more wines and further developing customer relationship and payment tools.

Announced: 09/12/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Institutional Investors: Sydney Angels Sidecar Fund  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: September 2014

Idea Chakki Raises Undisclosed Funding. The New Delhi, India-based mobile app works with restaurants to provide digital video menus and allow customers to gift food and beverages across the world. Currently Idea Chakki operates in six restaurants, and the company aims to expand to 30 restaurants by the end of this year. The funding will be used to expand to new locations, build the team, and advance technology.

Announced: 09/12/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Ratan Tata  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2013

Salido Raises $2m. The New York, NY-based restaurant operating system lets restaurants manage workers, point of sale, inventories, and customer relations from one operating system. Having overall management of restaurants sets Salido apart from other operating systems which focus individually on single aspects of restaurant management, such as point of sale or orders. At present, Salido has processed $27 million in transactions for more than 1 million guests.

Announced: 09/08/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Phil Suarez  Previous Investment: $2.0 million  Founded: 2012

GoSpotCheck Raises $16.5m. The Denver, CO-based mobile data collection app helps companies collect and analyze inventory, display and price information.  The data analysis helps companies make better retail decisions, such as how best to display their products to increase business. Clients include The Dannon Company and Labatt Brewing Company. GoSpotCheck will use the funds to hire more employees and develop new app features.

Announced: 09/07/16  Stage: Series B  Participating Institutional Investors: Point Nine Capital, Insight Venture Partners  Previous Investment: $9.5 million  Founded: June 2011

VizEat Raises $4.3m. The Paris, France-based “social dining platform” allows travelers to eat a local, home-cooked meal in a home where they are visiting. In addition to meals, some VizEat hosts also offer cooking classes and food tours. To date, VizEat has over 20000 hosts in 110 countries. The funding will be used for growth, and VizEat plans to open offices in the UK and Germany, in addition to its current offices in France, Spain, and Italy.

Announced: 09/06/16  Stage: Venture  Participating Institutional Investors: Eurovestech  Previous Investment: $1.3 million  Founded: 2014

DayBox Raises $600k. The New Delhi, India-based platform for fresh produce sales connects farms with restaurants and retailers. At present, over 30 farms and 50 restaurants use the platform. The funding will be used to grow the team, develop technology, and to expand to Bangalore and Mumbai.

Announced: 09/01/16  Stage: Seed  Participating Investors: Ashutosh Lawania, Badal Malick, Rajul Jain, Rishi Gupta  Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: 2016

PARTNERSHIPS

Edamam Partners with Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Tablespoon and QueRicaVida to provide nutrition information.

Fishbowl Partners with Groupon to help restaurants measure and analyze success of Groupon campaigns.

Revel Systems Partners with Punchh to enhance restaurant customer mobile engagement.

Hershey Partners with Chef’d to make dessert meal kits.

EatStreet Partners with Pingup to allow consumers to order food directly from Yahoo and YP searches.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As the Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

 

Check out the 2015 Annual Report and the Summer 2016 round-up. 

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A & Partnerships: September 2016 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.


Oprah Gets Into The Restaurant Biz, Walter Robb Joins S2G Ventures, Starbucks Bans Plastic Straws + More

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Source: True Food Kitchen

 

Every week we track the business, tech and investment trends in CPG, retail, restaurants, agriculture, cooking and health, so you don’t have to. Here are some of this week’s top headlines.

Celebrities are making moves in the food world. Oprah invested in True Food Kitchen, a healthy restaurant chain backed by Dr. Andrew Weil. Meanwhile natural food rockstar Walter Robb has joined S2G Ventures as an Exec-In Residence.

Hello, unicorns! Luckin Coffee, a 9-month old coffee company, is giving starbucks a run for its money in China. The startup has already opened 525 outlets across China’s major cities  and it recently closed a $200 million funding round at a $1 billion valuation. POS startup, Toast, raised $115 million at a $1.4 billion valuation, meaning the startup has also gained unicorn status.

In other news, as companies left the Grocery Manufacturers Association last year,  the U.S. divisions of Danone, Mars, Nestle and Unilever have launched their own association. The Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, they say, will advocate for progressive food policies.

Check out our weekly round-up of last week’s top food startup, tech and innovation news below or peruse the full newsletter here.

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1. Former Whole Foods Co-CEO Walter Robb Joins S2G Ventures as Exec-in-ResidenceAgFunder

As an executive-in-residence, Robb will help S2G identify new investments and mentor portfolio entrepreneurs who are moving the food system toward sustainability and health.

 

2. True Food Kitchen, the Restaurant Chain Oprah Just Invested In, ExplainedEater

Oprah has invested an undisclosed amount in Phoenix-based True Food Kitchen, a healthy restaurant chain backed by Dr. Andrew Weil. She is also joining the board of directors.

 

3. A Startup Challenging Starbucks in China is Now Worth $1 BillionQuartz

Luckin Coffee has opened 525 outlets across China’s major cities in just 9 months since launching. The startup closed a $200 million funding round giving it a $1 billion valuation.

 

4. Toast Raises $115M at a $1.4B Valuation to Create a One-Stop Management Tool For RestaurantsTechCrunch

T. Rowe Price led the round of funding in the POS system, with participation from Tiger Global Management, Bessemer, Generation Investment Management, and Lead Edge Capital.

5. Starbucks Swears Off Single-Use Plastic Straws for 2020 Deadline – Bloomberg

The company plans to eliminate plastic straws from its more than 28k locations globally. Exchanging them for alternative-materials and recyclable strawless lids will allow the coffee giant to remove more than 1b plastic straws from its locations per year.

 

6. Venture Capital Investing in Food Accelerating – Food Business News

Since 2013, F&B startups have raised $9.5b across 2.1k deals globally. Consumer demand for healthy, sustainable and personalized options has helped spark a surge in venture capital firms, incubators and accelerators focused on food and beverage.

 

7. Costco Changes Up Food Court Menu, but the $1.50 Hot Dog Deal Remains – The Seattle Times

The retail giant is selling new menu items meant to appeal to more health-conscious shoppers, but there’s no sign its long-standing dog deal is going away.

8. GrubMarket Gobbles up $32M Led by GGV For Its Healthy Grocery Ordering and Delivery ServiceTechCrunch

The round of funding is a mixture of equity and debt led by GGV with participation from Fusion Fund, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Max Ventures,and others. The fund will be used to grow and make acquisitions ahead of its upcoming IPO.

 

9. Four of the World’s Largest Food Companies Have a New Plan For Fixing Food & Farm PolicyThe Washington Post

A year after the GMA began to implode, the U.S. divisions of Danone, Mars, Nestle and Unilever have launched their own association. The Sustainable Food Policy Alliance, unveiled Thursday, says it will fight for progressive food policies — from conservation programs to prominent nutrition labels — that have long been eschewed by major food-makers.

 

10. Brava Hopes To Heat Up The ‘Smart Kitchen’ With a $995 OvenWired

The oven cooks uses infrared light, sensors, AI, and more to cook items faster than a conventional oven. The startup has also partnered with Chef’d to offer a food delivery service.

 

11. Following Farm Deal With General Mills, Midwestern BioAg Nabs $15MXconomy

The fertilizers, seed, and other biological product startups that it says can help farmers boost soil fertility, has raised capital from 3 private investors for product expansion with Genera Mills.

12. Farmers Business Network Invests in AgriSecure to Help Farmers Transition to OrganicAgFunder

The agribusiness marketplace and data platform has invested in AgriSecure, a Nebraskan startup that helps row crop farmers transition to organic farming.

 

Our newsletter is the absolute easiest way to stay on top of the emerging sector, so sign up for it today and never miss the latest food tech and innovation news and trends, Already signed up? Share the love with your friends and colleagues!

The post Oprah Gets Into The Restaurant Biz, Walter Robb Joins S2G Ventures, Starbucks Bans Plastic Straws + More appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

February was an exceptionally lucrative month for the food tech and media industry, with a reported $1.8 billion invested into the sector through 19 acquisitions and thirteen private capital raises. Impressively, this figure doesn’t even include thirteen deals which had undisclosed terms.

Rocket Internet and its newly formed “Global Online Takeaway Group” dominated the activity with an acquisition tear (twelve acquisitions were related to Rocket Internet), representing an aggregate of $856 million invested (still less than half of the total reported influx). But in fact, platform plays were reflected in many of the M&A deals in February. Consolidation was seen both through newly created platforms such as Under Armour’s UA Record, or the merging of older legacy businesses into new platforms, such as Grubhub’s two delivery acquisitions and Heartland’s two POS acquisitions.

Of the many significant developments in the online ordering and delivery sector this month, I’ll begin with Rocket Internet’s substantial strategic move to “create the biggest Internet-based food-ordering service outside of China.” The publicly-traded Berlin-based e-commerce and investment group has been funding the rapid global consolidation of the food delivery sector over the years through its numerous holdings, and now has made a significant move to consolidate its own investments in the sector (now including foodpanda, Delivery Hero, Talabat, La Nevera Roja, Pizzabo and Yemeksepeti) to form the “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

There were a series of transactions that accomplished this feat (this press release goes into further depth), however two of the cornerstone transactions involved the 30% minority acquisition of Delivery Hero (in March it was further increased to approx. 40%), and the increased direct ownership in foodpanda to 52% (as a result of primary and secondary transactions in a new fundraise announced in March). Further acquisitions and funding details are detailed in the M&A and Funding sections below.

I definitely recommend spending some time with Rocket Internet’s presentation discussing its investment thesis in the food sector to gain a clearer understanding of the vision behind the consolidation – some great industry stats in there as well. Notably, although HelloFresh is key to Rocket Internet’s thesis on investing in the food and grocery sector, HelloFresh is not part of the newly created “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

As mentioned above, Grubhub also made some news in February with its foray into food delivery through the acquisition of two 25+ year old companies who provide restaurant delivery and corporate catering services. Grubhub said the move was intended to expand the total addressable market from restaurants that already offer delivery, and would create both economic and service advantages for a Grubhub over a third-party logistics strategy.

This could be a game changer for Grubhub, and Dan Primack at Fortune notes it may make it an attractive acquisition target in its own right if Grubhub can own the restaurant delivery business, but Street Fight also points out that it’s “unclear whether Grubhub’s scale between markets actually improves the economics or quality of a delivery network in a given market.” Street Fight goes on to discuss the potential liabilities that come with operating its own proprietary network through a contract labor model, and further notes, “If delivery is [purely] a commodity… then the company would be better suited to maximize reach and reduce liability by leaving the operations to third parties. If not, then the move will help Grubhub enter a potentially massive market.”

On that note, it is interesting that Yelp, which previously developed its online ordering network through partnerships with third party companies as part of its Platform initiative, made a move in stark contrast to this strategy by acquiring Eat24 to now operate its own proprietary ordering platform. While a Yelp spokesman told Street Fight that the company expects its “online booking and ordering partners to continue as Platform partners,” it’s fair to assume that partners’ revenue streams will be impacted, as Eat24 will now likely hold precedent over other companies. Read below for additional details and thoughts on the acquisitions.

M&A

JustEat Acquires SinDelantal.Mx. The Mexico-based online ordering platform will add 3,000 restaurants in Mexico, and a Latin American presence to the London-based, publically traded JustEat. TechCrunch reports that the acquisition is “thought to be one of the largest, if not the largest, online company exits in Mexico.”

Announced: 02/16/15 Terms: Estimated to be “north of $20 millionPrevious Investment: $3.2m  Founded: January 2012

Heartland Acquires Dinerware and pcAmerica. The payments processor and a provider of merchant business solutions continued it shopping spree in the hospitality and retail POS markets through the acquisition of both Dinerware and pcAmerica, two leading point-of-sale companies focused on the restaurant, hospitality and retail sectors. The company reported that these two cloud-based POS systems will overlap with what is being developed by Leaf (which Heartland acquired in August 2014), and consequently it will stop POS development and write down related POS assets at Leaf, though “certain elements of Leaf’s capabilities will become part of Heartland Commerce.”

Announced: 02/13/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Dineware – 2000; pcAmerica – 1985

Yelp Acquires Eat24. The San Bruno, CA-based food delivery platform will expand Yelp’s services to include food ordering. As Street Fight points out, Yelp has spent the past 18 months developing partnerships with online ordering and booking services as part of its Platform initiative, which included Eat24 as well as other delivery partners like Delivery.com, in order to allow integration within Yelp’s listing pages so that users can book and order food without leaving the search page. In terms of the larger industry implications, Street Fight comments that Yelp has now essentially become Grubhub’s largest competitor other than Google, and “reflects an ongoing verticalization of the search industry driven by a mobile consumer who increasingly expects to find and buy in the same app.” This may be the case on the consumer-facing side of the business, however Grubhub’s deeper integration via its new delivery network may create stronger ties to infrastructure and margin improvements for restaurants that Yelp can’t provide.

Announced: 02/10/15 Terms: $134m ($75m stock, $59m cash) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed  Founded: March 2008

Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” Acquires Talabat. The Kuwait-based food delivery portal operates in Middle Eastern countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with over 1,300 partner restaurants, and will be part of the newly created Global Online Takeaway Group.

Announced: 02/11/15 Terms: $169.9m Previous Investment: Not Disclosed (but this article discusses the company’s growth and investors through the years)  Founded: January 2004

Foodpanda Acquires Six Companies in Asia, One Company in the Middle East. Shortly after a series of acquisitions in Europe, Latin America and India, the foodpanda group (now a part of Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” – see above) continues to acquire market share through the addition of six more companies in seven countries across Asia, including the takeover of JustEat’s India operations, which complements the recent TastyKhana acquisition. According to The Economic Times, JustEat had relinquished its majority stake to 49.9% in its India entity in November 2013, when Axon Partners Group and Forum Synergies India invested an undisclosed amount. The other acquired companies and countries include: Room Service, a brand of Food Runner, in Malaysia and Singapore; City Delivery, also a brand of Food Runner, in the Philippines; EatOye in Pakistan; Koziness in Hong Kong, and in Thailand, foodpanda entered into a partnership with Food By Phone. Separately, foodpanda acquired 24h.ae, an online food ordering marketplace in the United Arab Emirates founded in 2011.

Announced: 02/06/15 and 02/11/15 Terms: Not Disclosed

Rocket Internet’s “Global Online Takeaway Group” Acquires La Nevera Roja and Pizzabo. The two ordering and delivery startups, La Nevera Roja, an online food ordering platform providing delivery and takeaway service, and Pizzabo, a Bologna, Italy-based delivery platform for takeaway pizzas and other food, will be part of the newly created Global Online Takeaway Group.

Announced: 02/06/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: La Nevera Roja – $14.3m; Pizzabo – Not Disclosed Founded: La Nevera Roja – January 2011; Pizzabo – 2009

Grubhub Acquires DiningIn and Restaurants on the Run. In an effort to build its own delivery network and preempt on-demand delivery aspirants, Grubhub acquired Brighton, MA-based DiningIn and Aliso Viejo, CA-based Restaurants on the Run – both of which focus on restaurant delivery and corporate catering services. As Street Fight notes, the move marks “a transition in the company’s strategy from a focus on moving an existing delivery market online to using the web to expand the delivery market as a whole.” The company said the deals will give the company a combined relationship with over 3,000 restaurants over 15 markets in the U.S. Street Fight also reports that the company said it plans to essentially break even on the delivery service, and use additional cost savings to reduce delivery fees paid by customers, while merchants will also pay a nominally higher commission rate for deliveries operated by Grubhub. Dan Primak at Fortune further discusses the competitive implications and dynamics of the acquisitions, it is worth a read.

Announced: 02/05/15 Terms: Approximately $80m for the two deals combined Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: DiningIn – 1988; ROTR – January 1993

Under Armour Acquires MyFitnessPal and Endomondo. With the goal of creating a global digital health and fitness community, the sports performance company acquired MyFitnessPal, a San Francisco-based service for letting users track and share calorie intake and other health and wellness data, and Endomondo, a Denmark-based social fitness network and activity tracker. The two acquisitions complement the 2013 acquisition of MapMyFitness, and will provide Under Armour with additional technology for its recently launched UA Record fitness tracking app and website, which will be connected with 120 million unique global consumers. Notably, as Mobile Health News reports, Under Armour’s strategy no longer includes the plan to build its own wearable tech or digital tech platform (Apple HealthKit, Google Fit, etc.), rather, the company is focused on building the community to integrate with all the active players in the space.

MyFitnessPal Announced: 02/04/15 Terms: $475.0m Previous Investment: $18.0m (at a valuation of $108m) Founded: 2005

Endomondo Announced: 02/04/15 Terms: $85.0m Previous Investment: $8.2m Founded: 2007

TripAdvisor Acquires ZeTrip. The San Mateo, CA-based mobile app company is the creator of Rove, a travel inspiration-themed personal journal app, which provides a travelogue of users’ movements based on their GPS coordinates and other data. ZeTrip’s three-person team will be integrated into TripAdvisor’s mobile team, and it is unclear if the Rove product will continue to operate as a standalone offering. TechCrunch notes that TripAdvisor has been focused on acquiring businesses that help pick up data about how consumers travel, which allows it to extend its lifecycle with its customers by serving a more relevant role during and after the trip, and ultimately, potentially feeding TripAdvisor’s bigger business by leveraging strategies for advertising and other marketing services.

Announced: 02/02/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: November 2011

FUNDING

Grofers Raises $10m. The Gurgaon, India-based online mobile delivery app delivers produce and other goods from local stores on-demand. Grofers currently works with vendors from Mumbai and Delhi, and processes over 30,000 deliveries every month. According to TechCrunch Grofers will use the capital to expand into more cities and improve technology so that stores can more easily manage orders, track inventory, and upload new products by themselves.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Previous Investment: $0.5 million Founded: December 2013

Chefs Feed Raises $4m. The San Francisco-based food media and technology platform showcases restaurant recommendations by chefs, and considers itself the antithesis of Yelp for restaurants and food discovery. The company aims to help chefs and their restaurants regain the ability to shape the narrative supporting their brand and food. As an example, in order to help chefs build their personal followings, Chefs Feed generates specialized content, including behind-the-scenes videos of restaurants, which are then featured on sites like Foursquare, Food & Wine and Urbanspoon. The company will use the new funding to expand its development team, execute new outreach campaigns, extend to more cities, and debut new products.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: ARTIS Ventures, Structure Capital, Haas Portman, Subtraction Capital Previous Investment: $3.2 million Founded: 2011

TinyOwl Raises $16m. The Mumbai, India-based food ordering service allows customers to order take-out via its iOS and Android apps. The funding will be used for national level expansion and innovating on the products, focusing on user experience. TinyOwl’s services are currently available only in Mumbai, but the company plans to expand to 50 cities in India.

Announced: 02/26/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Nexus Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners Previous Investment: $3.0 million Founded: 2012

Chewse Raises $700k. The Los Angeles-based B2B group delivery/catering platform focuses on serving offices, and distinguishes itself by presenting only high quality restaurants/dishes that it curates for its corporate clients rather than aggregating all catering options available in the area. In conjunction with the fundraise, Chewse announced it has served 100,000 meals, and plans to use the funding to expand its catering service.

Announced: 02/23/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Rocketship.VC Previous Investment: $1.0 million Founded: July 2011

Main Street Hub Raises $20m. The Austin, TX-based “do-it-for you” local marketing platform offers an integrated social, web, and email marketing solution designed to help local restaurants and merchants drive more customers. The company will use the proceeds to expand the teams in its Austin and New York City offices, especially focusing on the engineering and product teams.

Announced: 02/22/15 Stage: Debt Financing Participating Institutional Investors: Silicon Valley Bank Previous Investment: $20.9 million Founded: June 2009

Pocket Concierge Raises Seed Funding. The Tokyo, Japan-based restaurant booking platform focuses on high end-restaurants, allowing Pocket Concierge users to bookmark popular restaurants with long waiting lists. In the event of an unexpected cancellation, the restaurant will email users with bookmarks to fill vacancies. The undisclosed amount of funding was provided by strategic investor Line, an international messaging app, which had just disclosed its establishment of a $42 million fund for startup investments. Line announced that it aims to integrate services like Line Pay and Line Taxi into Pocket Concierge and its partner restaurants.

Announced: 02/17/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Line Previous Investment: $0.6 million Founded: July 2011

Postmates Raises $35m. The San Francisco-based online delivery service is a developer of consumer-facing logistics software that dispatches and guides couriers through major metropolitan areas to deliver local goods including prepared food, groceries and retail goods. Most recently, Postmates launched its own API, through which third-party sellers and app developers can offer same-day delivery powered by Postmates. As TechCrunch points out, scale is the most important factor in the on-demand delivery industry, in which winners are determined by who has the most surface area and the lowest prices, thus the company intends to use the funds to expand operations.

Announced: 02/20/15 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Spark Capital Previous Investment: $23.0 million Founded: 2011

Reserve Raises $15m. The New York-based digital concierge for diners and restaurants aims to address friction in the dining experience by combining reservations, feedback on service, and payment through its app. Reserve is currently partnered with restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston and plans to use the funding to expand operations nationwide. In addition to institutional investors, funding also came from a few celebrities, including Jared Leto, Will.i.am, and Jon Favreau.

Announced: 02/11/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Expa (lead), Human Ventures Capital (lead), Visionnaire Ventures, Venture51, SV Angel, SherpaVentures, Advancit Capital, Lowercase Capital, First Round Previous Investment: $2.3 million Founded: 2014

Delivery Hero Raises $324m from Rocket Internet; Rocket Internet Invests Additional $236m through Selling Shareholders (Secondary Sale). In creating its new Global Online Takeaway Group, Rocket Internet invested close to $560 million into the massive Berlin, Germany-based aggregator of online ordering/delivery services, and mobile food ordering technology for restaurants. The investment resulted in a minority stake of 30% for Rocket Internet, and values the company at $1.9 billion. As Bloomberg points out, the investment also “marks a departure from Rocket’s usual strategy, which consists of building businesses from the ground up.”

Announced: 02/06/15 Stage: Series H  Valuation: $1.9 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet Previous Investment: $656.7 million Founded: September 2010

HelloFresh Raises $126m. The New York, and Berlin, Germany-based subscription meal kit company delivers boxed “ready-to-make meals” containing with recipes and pre-portioned ingredients on a weekly basis. The company currently serves customers across the United States and aims to become the leading brand in the grocery and meal delivery sector. Outside the US, the company is active in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Australia. According to TechCrunch, HelloFresh will use the funding towards hiring new staff, expanding facilities, and general improvements of the supply chain and customer experience. Notably, although HelloFresh is key to Rocket Internet’s thesis on investing in the food and grocery sector, HelloFresh is not part of the newly created “Global Online Takeaway Group.”

Announced: 02/06/15 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet, Insight Venture Partners Previous Investment: $67.5 million Founded: 2011

YuMist Raises $1m. The Gurgaon, India-based startup offers a logistics and supply-chain-focused technology platform through which customers in the Gurgaon area can order food through a mobile app and receive deliveries in less than 30 minutes. YuMist employs its own chefs and uses a centralized kitchen to make homemade food from a predetermined menu. The company caters to office goers, and will use the proceeds to towards geographical expansion and furthering its production, technology, and delivery infrastructure.

Announced: 02/02/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Orios Venture Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: October 2014

Frsh Raises $518k. The Gurgaon, India-based online meal service startup provides urban professionals access to a healthy food space for meal options. The company manages and operates its own production and supply chain within Gurgaon, and customers can choose meals, snacks, salads, and sandwich options from the Frsh website for delivery. Frsh will use the funding to upgrade its kitchen, launch an android app, update its website, and digitize the supply chain and delivery process.

Announced: 02/03/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Kae Capital, India Quotient Previous Investment: $100k Founded: 2014

Hao Chushi Raises $800k. The Shanghai, China-based home catering app is a platform that connects users to nearby chefs who can be hired to cook in-home. Customers get the benefit of receiving a customizable home-cooked meal, while chefs have the freedom to choose their own work schedule and cook different kinds of cuisines, as opposed to preparing dishes from a set menu. The app currently serves Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou. The funding will be used towards expansion into more cities and improving service quality.

Announced: 02/02/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Angels Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: September 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

JC Penney partners with Epicurious.com to exclusively sell Epicurious brand cookware, Epicurious’ first product line.

Schedule101 partners with COMMLOG to integrate web-based employee scheduling within COMMLOG’s Virtual Manager Log.

Viggle partners with inMarket to deliver mobile advertising capabilities by providing offers and branded engagement to Viggle users based on context and users’ proximity to retail location.

Mars, Incorporated partners with UC Davis to launch Innovation Institute For Food And Health with the aim to advance new discoveries in sustainable food, agriculture and health.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

With a handful of significant late stage transactions and good mix of earlier-stage deals, March activity rounded out to almost $2.0 billion in investments through fundraising and acquisitions. With four acquisitions ($505.5 million), seventeen private capital raises ($1.47 billion) and one public company private placement ($1.2 million), delivery was still a prominent theme as were a variety of technology platforms for ordering, payment, reservations, reviews and more. About half of the fundraising took place outside of the U.S.

Mirroring the investment trends, much discussion in the media continues to focus on the “1099 Economy” and the overall delivery business model. While delivery foodtech startups like Instacart, Postmates and Caviar are being sued over labor practices, investment is still pouring into the sector as companies race to grow transactions and own each market as they expand their geographic footprint. Although current market conditions are a indeed frothy, there is still room for new specialized market segments to blossom (alcohol delivery is a recent example), where businesses need to layer in new strategies in order to tap into the new generation of smartphone-wielding shoppers.

M&A

ShopKeep Acquires Payment Revolution. The Northbrook, IL-based credit card processing startup will enable ShopKeep, a NYC-based mobile payments startup, to offer payment processing as a part of its point-of-sale platform. As a part of the deal, ShopKeep will operate under the new name, ShopKeep Payments. TechCrunch reports that the two companies were already partnering together, and the deal will allow the ShopKeep to provide a simpler product to better meet the need of merchants.

Announced: 03/25/2015 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: NA Founded: 2009

Minibar Delivery Acquires Booze Carriage. The New York City-based Booze Carriage, similar to Minibar Delivery, is an alcohol delivery platform that connects users to their local liquor stores to provide delivery. According to the release, Booze Carriage’s user base of 25,000 is expected to increase Minibar’s sales by 20%, and expand Minibar’s beer selection as well as its distribution capabilities. TechCrunch notes that the acquisition of Booze Carriage marks Minibar’s expansion to become the biggest player in the NYC place.

Announced: 03/20/2015 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

Recruit Acquires Quandoo. The Berlin, Germany-based restaurant reservation platform is used by restaurants in Europe, Africa, and Asia to provide restaurant operators with a table and reservation management system, aimed at raising operational productivity and service quality. Recruit, a publically-traded Japanese human resources firm, reports that the acquisition of Quandoo will enable Recruit to expand its service and global reach as part of its goal to become the world’s largest “global matching platform.” Notably, Quandoo took a strategic investment from Recruit — via its RGIP venture capital fund — in late 2014, and now with this acquisition is wholly-owned by the company’s venture group.

Announced: 03/05/2015 Terms: $225.5m Previous Investment: $55.5m Founded: December 2012

PayPal Acquires Paydiant. The Wellesley, MA-based payment service enables large retail chains to create their own branded mobile wallet apps and currently serves 162 million users. Given Paydiant’s popularity among retailers and banks, its acquisition positions PayPal for growth in areas outside of internet payments. As TechCrunch points out, “adding Paydiant will bring more point-of-sale volume on to PayPal’s platform.” The deal gives Paydiant the opportunity to scale its business, and PayPal a path to becoming a stronger business partner for merchants, including restaurants, by providing a payment method in app-based platforms.

Announced: 03/02/2015 Terms: $280m Previous Investment: $34.6m Founded: 2010

FUNDING

MyLorry Raises Undisclosed Amount from Delivery Hero. Berlin-based MyLorry offers delivery for restaurants that don’t have their own logistic service. As Venture Village reports, Delivery Hero invested a “double-digit Euro million amount” for 16% of MyLorry’s shares.

Announced: 03/31/15 Stage: Seed Participating Investors: Delivery Hero Previous Investment: $2.3 million Founded: May 2013

MyCheck Raises $5m. The Tel Aviv, Israel and New York-based mobile payment app for restaurants and merchants allows customers to check in, view, split and pay their bills using mobile devices. The company’s technology platform is built into a number of apps and integrates with 27 different Points-of-Sale systems, allowing MyCheck to reach over 80 million consumers. TechCrunch notes that since its launch, MyCheck has pivoted to a B2B model, with analytics to allow customers to redeem special offers and be rewarded for loyalty. The company will use the new funding to accelerate its international expansion focusing on the US and Western Europe, boost sales and marketing, and augment its business intelligence capabilities. Notably, the investment comes from Santander’s new Innoventures Fund, which adds strategic “expertise and scale,” and the potential to have portfolio company’s marketed to the bank’s 107 million-plus retail and commercial customers across Europe and the Americas.

Announced: 03/29/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Santander Innoventures Fund Previous Investment: $6.1 million Founded: March 2011

ChowNow Raises $10m. The Venice, California-based online ordering and marketing platform enables restaurants to take orders through their website, Facebook page, and via branded smartphone apps specific for each restaurant. The company has recently expanded its management team as well as its services to integrate with Apple Pay, Yelp, and Google, and plans to introduce a new catering product and other enhancements to its core product. The funding will be used towards growth acceleration and product launch.

Announced: 03/26/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Upfront Ventures (lead), Steadfast Venture Capital, Daher Capital, Karlin Ventures Previous Investment: $7.7 million Founded: 2012

DoorDash Raises $40m. The Palo Alto-based on-demand restaurant food delivery platform makes it possible for small businesses to provide local delivery services to their customers. DoorDash currently services eight markets across the country. The company claims its on-demand delivery infrastructure enables customers to receive delivered goods in less than 45 minutes and ensures reliable deliveries in times of irregular demand. The company will use the proceeds towards expansion into new markets across the country and further investment in logistics technology to scale its platform beyond food.

Announced: 03/26/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Charles River Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: $19.7 million Founded: January 2013

Teabox Raises $6m. The Darjeeling, India-based online tea-seller distributes tea from the origin directly to a global consumer base. The company is vertically integrated and works directly with tea plantations in India and Nepal. According to TechCrunch, by handling distribution, supply, storage, and logistics itself, Teabox eliminates supply chain inefficiencies and is thus able to sell products at higher profit margins and ensure rapid delivery. Teabox will use the funding towards expansion into newer markets, infrastructure development, talent acquisition, and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 03/24/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: JAFCO Asia, Keystone Group, Dragoneer Investment Group, Accel Partners Previous Investment: $1 million Founded: July 2012

ezCater Raises $11.7m. The Boston-based online catering platform connects people with local caterers and restaurants across the U.S, with a specific focus on business catering. ezCater has partnered with over 40,000 caterers in the country to deliver meals for meetings and events of up to 2,000 people. The new funds will be used to hire employees, focusing on expanding its digital marketing, brand marketing, and software engineering teams.

Announced: 03/23/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Insight Venture Partners, Breton Capital Management, Launchpad Venture Group Previous Investment: $6.8 million Founded: August 2007

Kitchenbowl Raises $1m. The Seattle-based startup describes itself as a community in which users can share and discover recipes. The company has both a mobile and web platform, and aims to distinguish itself by offering step-by-step recipes, each with an accompanying GIF to guide clarity. In addition, users can find new content by following other users. Kitchenbowl aims to eventually enable users to purchase ingredients for the recipes through its platform.

Announced: 03/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Sugar Mountain Capital, Chasing Unicorns, Indicator Fund Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Maple Raises $22m. The New York-based startup, with notable involvement by chef David Chang, will launch and operate a delivery-only kitchen that serves restaurant quality meals to subscribers in New York in the coming months. The company is designed to be vertically integrated, distinguishing itself from other meal delivery startups by managing orders, food preparation, and delivery. Maple will use the new funding to develop its product, hire staff, and build out infrastructure and marketing.

Announced: 03/20/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Greenoaks Capital, Primary Ventures, Thrive Capital Previous Investment: $4.0 million Founded: 2014

Thirstie Raises $1.1m. The New York-based wine, spirits, and beer delivery app serves as a marketing platform for liquor stores. Through the company’s mobile platform, users can order alcohol from nearby stores that offers delivery services. TechCrunch reports that the company aims to establish a relationship with consumers through alcohol-related content, currently featured via microsites dedicated to the drinking culture of the customer’s region. Thirstie has partnered with over 100 liquor retailers and operates in markets including Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York City, and plans to use the funding to expand into new markets, as well as speed customer acquisition, enhance product development, and increase support provision.

Announced: 03/19/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Angels Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: February 2013

Pinterest Raises $367m. The San Francisco, CA-based visual discovery platform raised capital at a valuation of $11 billion, more than doubling the valuation from $5 billion last May. As Bloomberg reports, Pinterest has been working to build out its advertising model, through which brands can pay to promote their posts. The company is also investing to expand internationally and improve its product.

Announced: 03/16/15 Stage: Series G Valuation: Approximately $11 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Innovation Department, Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz Previous Investment: $762.5 million Founded: January 2009

Oddle Raises $718k. The Singapore-based food ordering platform enables smaller restaurants to join the online ordering market by managing the logistics of online deliveries and pick-ups. A subscription service, Oddle allows customers to order food through a branded page customizable by the restaurant, while providing restaurant operators with an order management system. Unlike competing services that charge restaurants per order transaction, Oddle charges a flat fee for every restaurant outlet, which allows restaurants to make a higher profit if their online businesses are successful. Oddle intends to use the fresh injection of capital to focus on regional expansion into major cities, in addition to platform development to allow enable multiple language functions and back-end infrastructure strengthening to support larger capacities.

Announced: 03/16/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Investors: East Ventures, Holly Tan Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2014

Retty Raises $8.2m. The Tokyo, Japan-based social platform enables users to rate and review restaurants and see which spots are popular with their friends. The site presently sees an estimated 8 million monthly visitors. Retty plans to use the funding for international expansion to the United States, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Announced: 03/16/2015 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Fidelity Growth Partners Japan, Gree Ventures, Mizuho Capital Previous Investment: $4.4 million Founded: 2011

Favor Raises $13m. The Austin-based on-demand food delivery app allows users to have products delivered from local grocery stores and restaurants. Through Favor’s mobile app, users can identify their desired food or grocery item along with the store they might want to purchase from. Favor’s delivery people can stay in touch with customers through text message as they seek out the products for delivery. The company currently serves Austin, Boston, Houston, and Dallas, and plans to use to the funding to improve customer services and expand into seven to ten new cities this year.

Announced: 03/13/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Silverton Partners, S3 Ventures Previous Investment: $3.9 million Founded: April 2012

FoodPanda Raises $110m. After a major acquisition spree in India, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia, the Berlin-based food delivery marketplace, which is now part of Rocket Internet’s newly formed “Global Online Takeaway Group”, plans to further invest into product and technology. The company states it will also continue to focus on user experience, customer service and loyalty.

Announced: 03/12/15 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet Previous Investment: $108.0 million Founded: April 2012

Dianping Raises $850m. The Shanghai, China- based restaurant review and group buying app, The investment will push the company’s valuation to $4.05 billion, which is above its closest U.S. equivalent – Yelp. Dianping has more than 190 million monthly active users and over 60 million reviews of restaurants and other local businesses.

Announced: 03/12/15 Stage: Series E Valuation: $4.06 billion Participating Institutional Investors: Xiaomi Corp., FountainVest Partners, Temasek Holdings, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Wanda Group, Fosun Group Previous Investment: $162.3 million Founded: April 2003

Groupon India Raises $20m. The U.S.-based business has been exploring strategic options for its holdings in Asia, and Groupon India, which was born out of one of Groupon’s acquisition of SoSasta, has picked up outside investment. According to TechCrunch, the long-term strategy for Groupon India appears to be aimed at further separating itself from its parent company in the U.S. and growing more autonomous.

Announced: 03/10/2015 Stage: Venture Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital Founded: January 2011 (Date of Groupon’s acquisition of SoSatsa)

Innovative Food Holdings Raises $1.2m. The publicly-traded nationwide provider of specialty foods to the professional foodservice market, and the parent company of The Fresh Diet, a direct-to-consumer freshly prepared meal delivery company, announced it has closed a private placement of restricted shares. According to the release, the company plans to use the proceeds for the growth of The Fresh Diet and expansion opportunities in the Direct-to-Chef business segments.

Announced: 03/09/2015 Stage: Private Placement

PepperTap Raises $1.2m. The Gurgaon, India-based mobile application offers on-demand grocery delivery services. Rather than maintaining its own inventory, PepperTap focuses on facilitating orders and deliveries, and claims to ensure delivery within Gurgaon in less than two hours after customers place their order. The funding will be used to further develop the product, scale up the operations, grow its staff, and enhance offline and online brand visibility.

Announced: 02/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: November 2014

PARTNERSHIPS

Uber Partners with Chili’s to provide diners who use the Ziosk pay-at-the-table tablet a $20 credit for transportation.

Postmates Partners with Starbucks to deliver Starbucks products to customers who order through the Starbucks mobile app.

Sidecar Partners with Eat24 to offer delivery services using Sidecar’s network of drivers, who are currently engaged in the ride sharing service.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

Find value in this monthly roundup? Help us continue bringing you the news, insights and community you depend on by making a small contribution. Learn more HERE.

 

The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: April 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

The food tech and media industry was quite active in April, especially as consolidation continued to heat up in the restaurant and food delivery sector; with eight of the eleven acquisitions within that category. With over $250 million invested across 15 private funding deals during the month, there was a solid mix across all stages but a heavier concentration of Series A deals (averaging $9 million in size). Notably, three quarters of the funding deals were international, with a majority of them in India.

While India has been seen as a huge growth market for U.S. companies in the consumer sector, home-grown entrepreneurs are increasingly seizing the opportunity. The food tech industry in particular has seen a recent boom, as the Indian publication Your Story notes, “the rise in consumerism, strong economic background, and relatively better incomes are encouraging Indians to eat out like never before.” In the same article, Kunal Walia from Khetal Advisors says, “Food-tech investments are a perfect follow-through to the recent theme of ‘Habit Forming Companies’ that have been attracting significant rounds of capital in recent times.”

The grocery delivery space in particular is an area of growth in India, with both ecommerce incumbents and startups paving the road. Amazon India recently announced it would be launching an express delivery platform in partnership with mom-and-pop stores, calling it Kirana Now and Snapdeal recently partnered with gourmet food retailer Godrej Nature’s Basket to sell its products online, with orders delivered the next day. Flipkart is now reportedly poised to begin selling groceries from the second half of this year, and is most likely to be launched as an in-house offering rather than through an acquisition, according to The Economic Times.

Kunal Walia further points to “one clear leader” in the Indian food tech space, Zomato, “[which] is pushing all the boundaries to build a high-value business.” Zomato however, despite the Indian headquarters, is increasingly focusing its attention and growth prospects internationally, including in the U.S., as Zomato’s CEO has stated that India represents only 8 % of market for the company. Regardless, with its significant funding, and global aspirations, Zomato will likely continue to be a major consolidator as startups in the sector face scaling challenges in acquiring consumers and business clients/partners. As we are already seeing in the U.S. and selectively abroad, the mass funding in this space will likely lead to consolidation, as happened in the e-commerce and daily deals space.

M&A

Kroger Acquires Assets of DunnhumbyUSA. British grocer Tesco’s customer data science and loyalty division Dunnhumby will transfer many of its US employees and data assets to Tesco’s US-based joint venture partner Kroger. According to Supermarket News, the new venture will be a long-term service license to use Dunnhumby’s technologies under a new business to be known as 84.51°. The agreement will lift restrictions on Dunnhumby pursuing business with additional U.S. retailers, and will no longer restrict Kroger from employing other firms to analyze its data. Stuart Aitken, who previously led DunnhumbyUSA, will become CEO of 84.51°. Dunnhumby itself has reportedly been on the market for several months as its parent company explores “strategic options.” AdExchanger reports that Goldman Sachs will continue the search for outside investment for dunnhumby ltd., now sans Kroger.

Announced04/27/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Joint Venture began in 2003

Zomato Acquires NexTable. The Charlotte, NC-based restaurant reservation and table management platform is Zomato’s second U.S. acquisition, as the company hopes to better monetize Zomato’s listings through reservation services. TechCrunch notes that NexTable, which will be relaunched as “Zomato Book,” may have been looking for an alternative exit path as a lack of outside funding and the headquarters location may have limited its ability to scale. Zomato will be taking NexTable’s technology internationally to India, UAE, and Australia.
Announced04/22/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: August 2012

Trimble Agriculture Solutions Acquires HarvestMark. Trimble, an agriculture solutions provider, acquired the assets of HarvestMark, a SaaS provider of food traceability and quality inspection solutions, from YottaMark, Inc. According to the release, the acquisition will help enhance Trimble’s position in agriculture and transportation and logistics within the food supply chain. Additionally, the CEO of YottaMark will join Trimble after the acquisition. Notably, HarvestMark had acquired Shopwell Solutions in 2013, however the Shopwell assets were not included in the sale.

Announced: 04/22/14 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $53.0m Founded: January 2005

Rocket Internet Acquires Volo. The Munich, Germany-based food-delivery startup allows customers to order food online from restaurants that don’t offer their own takeout and delivery services. Volo operates in key cities within Germany, and had announced plans to expand into nine other European countries. One would assume Volo will become part of Rocket Internet’s Global Online Takeaway Group, however TechCrunch notes that Rocket Internet’s competitive strategy is unclear given its recent funding of Volo’s competitor, Take It Easy, which operates in similar markets. Nevertheless, the acquisition suggests that Rocket Internet sees food delivery as a growth opportunity.

Announced04/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2014

Zomato acquires MaplePOS. The Delhi, India-based point-of-sale service for restaurants offers credit and debit card payment solutions, including menu and inventory management. The acquisition of the cloud-based payments platform marks Zomato’s first acquisition of a product outside of the restaurant search space. According to TechCrunch, adding a payments service will enable Zomato to increase its B2B offerings for restaurants. The Economic Times notes that technology has become increasingly integral to the online food services sector, and Zomato’s acquisition will enable the company to be more competitive in the market space. MaplePOS will be integrated with “Zomato Base”, Zomato’s own point-of-sale system.

Announced04/14/15 Terms: Undisclosed (cash and equity) Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2011

Grofers Acquires Mygreenbox. The Gurgaon, India-based grocery delivery smartphone app delivers orders to users at their chosen time and location, and will give Grofers access to Mygreenbox’s client base, and also help it “to build technology for backend to further accelerate delivery.”Mygreenbox operates in the Gurgaon area and processes an average of 200 orders per day. Following the acquisition, the Mygreenbox business will shut down and be wholly integrated into to Grofers.

Announced04/10/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: April 2014

TripAdvisor Acquires BestTables. The Lisbon, Portugal-based online and mobile restaurant booking platform lets diners browse restaurants based on location, availability, price, cuisine type, and special offers before placing a reservation. BestTables will be integrated with TripAdvisor’s previous acquisition, TheFork (LaFourchette). As BestTables is partnered with 1200 restaurants in Portugal and Brazil, the acquisition will expand TripAdvisor’s European market and strengthen its presence in South America. As tnooz points out, the acquisition comes at a time where the market for restaurant reservations is in a period of consolidation.

Announced04/10/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2011

Square Acquires Fastbite. The San Francisco-based food delivery startup partners with restaurants to provide $10 meals that could be delivered in less than 10 minutes. As part of the deal, Fastbite will be integrated with Caviar, a food delivery company previously acquired by Square. The merged business will operate under the new name, Caviar Fastbite. According to Venturebeat, Caviar’s delivery infrastructure is geared towards upscale restaurants, so having Fastbite as a feature of Caviar will allow Caviar to tap into the lunch delivery business, while enabling Fastbite to be a stronger competitor in the industry. Fastbite currently only serves San Francisco, but may soon expand into other cities.
Announced04/08/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Reserve Acquires zurvu. The New York-based mobile waitlist startup charges users a fee in exchange for securing reservations at in-demand restaurants. Users can book publicly available or exclusively held tables using the zurvu’s waitlist technology. Reserve plans to incorporate zurvu’s services into its existing service and technology. The acquisition will allow Reserve to expand into Philadelphia as well as increase its restaurant base in NYC.

Announced04/07/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $1.2m Founded: 2012

Reserve Acquires HAIL. The Santa Monica-based payment technology platform offers bill splitting services for users. The app additionally calculates the tip and lets diners electronically hail their servers. According to the release, HAIL’s features will be integrated into the Reserve app and will further streamline Reserve’s payment services.

Announced04/07/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Weight Watchers Acquires Weilos. The San Francisco-based mobile platform for fitness and weight loss focuses on introducing social media to users’ weight loss and fitness journeys, which will enhance the social networking and community capabilities of the Weight Watchers program. The acquisition will also “accelerate product and technology development” for the Weight Watchers platform. The startup lets users document and share their weight loss progress through selfies via a picture taking app, discuss weight loss and fitness goals, and track food intake and activity. TechCrunch reports that the average person posting progress pictures on Weilos loses 1.2 pounds per week, whereas the average Weight Watchers user loses .27 pounds per week.

Announced04/06/15 Terms: “Single millions” Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

FUNDING

Keru Cloud Raises $10.7m. The China-based restaurant management software company aims to be an “all-in-one solution for restaurants and other businesses to go digital.” Restaurant staff can use Keru Cloud’s mobile platform to manage reservations, orders, and customer loyalty programs. Online, Keru Cloud’s mobile app lets client restaurants offer maps, menus, special discounts, and online ordering services from their individualized digital storefronts. Keru Cloud will use the capital injection to enter into more service sectors, invest in product development, and expand its sales and operations teams.

Announced: 04/24/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Baidu (lead), Tianxing Capital (lead), Fangjinglin Investment, Kaixing Capital Previous Investment: Series A Amount Not Disclosed Founded: November 2012

EazyDiner Raises Seed Funding. The Delhi, India-based restaurant reservation dining platform offers users reviews, recommendations, insiders’ advice, concierge services, and manages each reservation. EasyDiner currently operates in the Delhi region, where it has over 8,000 listings, and partners with nearly 300 restaurants for online reservation and exclusive deals. The startup plans to launch its services in Mumbai by July, and expand operations into Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai within this year.

Announced: 04/23/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

Bring! Raises Seed Funding. The Zurich, Switzerland-based grocery shopping list app is focused on user experience, with an icon-based catalogue. Lists can be shared with several people and are automatically synced to ensure efficient planning and shopping. Using icons instead of text, the company aims to offer a similar user experience on both smartphones and smartwatches, including the new Apple Watch.

Announced: 04/21/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

Sprig Raises $45m. The San Francisco-based subscription food delivery service makes and delivers locally sourced meals to customers in the area. The company’s goal is to deliver organic and ready-to-eat meals in an average of 20 minutes after ordering. To keep its delivery time short, Sprig uses data technology to predict times of incoming orders and sends out delivery vehicles in advance of orders placed by customers. Sprig intends to use the new capital to expand its service to cities across the country, with the rest of the Bay Area and Chicago as its immediate targets.

Announced: 04/15/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Social Capital (lead), Greylock Partners (lead), Accel Partners, Battery Ventures, 500 Startups, Ludlow Ventures, Lumia Capital, IDG Ventures, CAA Ventures, Previous Investment: $11.7 million Founded: April 2013

Grofers Raises $35m. The Gurgaon, India-based online mobile delivery app delivers produce and other goods from local stores on-demand. Grofers does not hold inventory, and currently partners with 400 merchants who list products on the app. According to TechCrunch, orders placed through Grofers’ platform have tripled over March. The company intends to use the capital to increase product offerings and expand into other areas of India.

Announced: 04/14/15 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Previous Investment: $10.5 million Founded: December 2013

Hello Alfred Raises $10.5m. The New York-based home management service partners with on-demand services to complete household customers’ chores, including groceries and laundry. Each user is assigned a home manager, called an Alfred, who takes care of chores so that users won’t have to manage multiple services themselves. Customers have the options of signing up for weekly automated chores or texting in requests. Hello Alfred currently operates in New York and Boston. The new funding will be used to scale Hello Alfred’s services and broaden its consumer base.

Announced: 04/14/15 Valuation: $33 million Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: New Enterprise Associates (lead), Spark Capital (lead), Sherpa Ventures, CrunchFund Previous Investment: $2 million Founded: September 2013

PepperTap Raises $10m. Just a month after announcing its Seed round, the Gurgaon, India-based on-demand grocery delivery services app announced a sizable Series A, which will allow the company to expand into 10 more cities in India by the end of the year. Rather than maintaining its own inventory, PepperTap creates online catalogs for stock from local retailers, and claims to ensure delivery within Gurgaon in less than two hours after customers place their order.

Announced: 04/14/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: $1.2 million Founded: November 2014

Take Eat Easy Raises $6.4m. The Brussels, Belgium-based online and mobile platform markets itself as an on-demand food delivery for “trendy” restaurants that do not have traditional delivery services. TechCrunch reports that Take Eat Easy employs bike couriers to make the deliveries, a feature which makes the company both a logistics and a food ordering business. Customers can track their orders in real time, and the estimated time of delivery for each restaurant is continually updated. Take Eat Easy currently operates in France and Belgium, and will use the funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe.

Announced: 04/14/15 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Rocket Internet, DN Capital, Piton Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

TouchBistro Raises $6m. The Toronto-based startup is a provider of mobile point-of-sale solutions and digital menus for the food and drink industry. Restaurants use TouchBistro’s software for the iPad to take and process orders, split bills, and email receipts. Clients include food trucks, bars, and coffee shops as well as traditional restaurants. TouchBistro reported that it recently surpassed $1 billion in transactions through its point-of-sale system, and was the top grossing food and beverage app in the iTunes store in 33 countries in 2014. The new funding will be used towards hiring staff and global expansion initiatives.

Announced: 4/14/15  Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Kensington Capital Partners, Relay Ventures, Difference Capital, JUST EAT Previous Investment: $6 million  Founded: 2010

Zomato Raises $50m. The Gurgaon, India-based restaurant search and discovery app allows users to see restaurant information, scan menus, follow food critics, and create personal food diaries. Having used most of its capital raised from the previous round to acquire Urbanspoon, Zomato now seeks to expand into related businesses, and is working on enabling consumers to order food from its website. As seen by its activity in the M&A section of this report, Zomato is attempting to build up the B2B aspect of its business.

Announced: 04/14/15 Valuation: Reportedly between $800 million and $1 billion Stage: Series F Participating Institutional Investors: Info Edge (lead), VY Capital, Sequoia Capital Previous Investment: $113.8 million Founded: August 2008

ZopNow raises $10m. The Bangalore, India-based online delivery portal sells a range of products, including groceries. The company sources its products from the supermarket chain, HyperCity, and claims to be able to deliver goods within 3 hours. Additionally, customers can use ZopNow’s program to track the location of their orders. ZopNow will use the capital for new hires and enhancing the technology platform, as well as expansion into more cities.

Announced: 4/13/15  Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Dragoneer Investment Group (lead), Times Internet, Qualcomm Ventures, Accel Partners Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: September 2011

Meican Raises $22.6m. The Beijing-based online food ordering service operates in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. Unlike some of its competitors, Meican’s target clients are enterprises that cater for employees. Tech In Asia notes that Meican’s funding “comes as China’s online food delivery sector finally heats up after a lukewarm start.” Meican intends to use the funds to expand into 30 more cities.

Announced: 04/08/15 Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Dianping (lead), Nokia Growth Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Trust Bridge Partners Previous Investment: $13 million Founded: 2010

HotSchedules Raises $20m. The Austin-based hospitality software company (formerly named Red Book Connect) produces mobile, cloud-based technology aimed at improving flexibility and work-life balance for employees in the restaurant, retail, and hospitality industries. Its flagship product of the same name is an employee scheduling and labor management software. HotSchedules also recently expanded its product suite also includes Josabi, a referral-based recruiting tool, and Bodhi, a data integration and delivery tool. The company claims to have a user base of more than 1.8 million in 26 countries. Funding will be used towards product development and sales and marketing initiatives.

Announced: 04/06/15 Stage: Growth Equity Participating Institutional Investors: Bridge Capital Holdings Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 1999

Swiggy Raises $2m. The Bangalore, India-based food delivery mobile app accepts orders from users and employs personnel to pick up and deliver food from restaurants to the customers’ doorsteps. The company claims its routing algorithm can ensure delivery in less than 35 minutes, and has made 30,000 deliveries in the Bangalore area. Swiggy will use the capital injection to expand into Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.

Announced: 04/03/15 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Accel Partners, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: August 2014

Tapingo Raises $22m. The San Francisco-based mobile food ordering platform enables location-aware discovery for consumers and immediate order fulfillment through operational integration for merchants. Currently, the service is live on 84 college campuses. Tapingo’s partner institutions provide hubs where students can pick up and pay for food using the company’s mobile app. Now the company is looking to expand beyond college campuses into other verticals including hospitals and corporations. Tapingo will use the new funding towards off-campus expansion in addition to product development, operations, and marketing.

Announced: 04/02/15  Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Qualcomm (lead), Carmel Ventures, DCM Ventures, Kinzon Capital, Khosla Ventures Previous Investment: $14 million  Founded: January 2012

PARTNERSHIPS

AmEx partners with Jawbone to offer mobile payments services through users’ fitness trackers.

Chipotle Partners with Postmates to launch delivery services in 67 cities in the U.S.

Zomato Partners with Uber to enable customers to book cabs to the restaurants at which they plan to dine.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

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The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: April 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: June 2015

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This monthly column highlights the most interesting acquisitions, financings and partnerships within the Food Tech & Media ecosystem – digital content, social, local, mobile, grocery, e-commerce, delivery, ordering, payments, marketing and analytics – to give you insights into the latest funding and growth trends.

There were a ton deals in June, with eleven acquisitions (mainly small) and sixteen fundraises (all shapes and sizes), rounding out to over $460 million of global investment into the food tech and media space. As we have been seeing for a while now, delivery and online ordering were represented in spades, but we also saw an influx of digital content deals – ranging from recipes to restaurants – which hasn’t been the case in a while. The average size between the Series A and Series B rounds was $9.4 million, and, signaling that sectors within this industry are increasingly crossing the threshold into the growth equity category, there were five deals sized over $20 million.

While we are far from IPO-mania, the industry is very rapidly accumulating well-capitalized players, and new talk of IPOs among pure-play food tech companies has begun to surface (vs. tech incumbents with a wider focus like Yelp, Coupons.com, Groupon, etc.).

As Delivery Hero padded up with $110 million from “leading public market investors” in June, some have speculated it may be the company’s last private round ahead of going public. Also from the Rocket Internet portfolio, it has been reported that HelloFresh may be considering an initial public offering this year and is in dialogue with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs about advising. On the (much) smaller side of the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal noted that TabbedOut’s recent funding in June would “be its final funding round before going public,” however it is unclear if that would be a near-term event (I would be surprised if that is the case). And while not a pure play food tech company, Square has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO, which could provide additional acquisition currency to layer in additional services within the local SMB market, many of which are restaurants and food retailers.

In the beginning of 2014 I framed the expansion into the public markets as a “rising tide” phenomenon for startups, in that investors will continue to increase their stake into this sector as the opportunity for successful exits (via acquisition) are more prominent.  However now that the industry has begun to mature, there is substantially more buy-in from investors, consumers and businesses on the food tech space.

And as we are now witnessing, great success is no longer necessarily tied to riding on a larger tech company’s coattails – which is quite a shift in dynamics from even 18 months ago. Acquisitions will still be a critical component to a thriving ecosystem however, as many of the current products and technologies – especially those focused on fragmented markets – may find they can create the most impact by joining a larger platform with more substantial resources.

M&A

Love With Food Acquires Taste Guru. The Denver-based gluten-free subscription box service delivers to customers a monthly box of gluten free snacks, and will enable Love With Food to expand its customers and offerings in the growing market. Taste Guru is the second gluten-free themed acquisition in the past year by Love With Food, a snack discovery service focusing on organic, all-natural products.

Announced: 06/24/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $120k Founded: July 2012

Deliv Acquires WeDeliver. The Chicago-based same day delivery platform, which provides delivery local services for over 100 Chicago-area companies, will help Deliv compete in the same-day delivery space as it continues towards national expansion. Following the acquisition, WeDeliver’s brand will be discontinued as its merchants – including grocery and food retailers – and “delivery specialists” transition to Deliv’s platform. As I have discussed a number of times, The Chicago Tribune notes that as the same-day delivery space continues to heat up with both small and large participants (including Amazon, Google and Postmates), consolidation appears to be an obvious next step.

Announced: 06/24/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $800k Founded: January 2013

Hello Curry Acquires Fire42. The Hyderabad, India-based restaurant management platform provides restaurants with inventory management, order management, trend tracking, loyalty and billing services, among other tools, and will allow Hello Curry to introduce real-time analytics and point of sale (POS) services to Hello Curry’s technology as it gears towards expansion. Medianama reports that it is unclear whether Fire42 will continue to offer its services independently.

Announced: 06/22/15 Terms: Stock and cash Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2012

Farmhouse Delivery Acquires Bento Picnic. The Austin-based startup prepares lunchbox meal kits modeled after the bento tradition of Japanese homemakers and will enable Farmhouse Delivery, which provides in-state groceries, to expand its brand beyond grocery delivery and cater to customers such as local office workers.

Announced: 06/19/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

Groupon acquires Venuelabs. The Seattle-based provider of location-based monitoring, measurement and engagement solutions allows local retailers to examine aggregated social media chatter about their businesses across dozens of platforms, including Foursquare, Twitter or Instagram. With the acquisition, Groupon will integrate Venuelab’s technology into its “Pages” service, where customers visiting Groupon can find information about the merchant.

Announced: 06/18/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $2.6 million Founded: March 2009

Cookpad acquires Cucumbertown. The Mountain View, CA and Bangalore-based recipes blog publishing network enables users to host their own food blogs, engage with fans, build an identity and, with the acquisition, hopes to help them monetize their recipes. The acquisition by the Tokyo-based recipe network Cookpad will enable Cucumbertown to expand to international markets and monetize the business through a “Tumbler model” of personalized themes and domains. The Economic Times further reports that Cucumbertown and Cookpad will work together on building a global culinary map.

Announced: 06/16/15 Terms: “Multi-millionsPrevious Investment: $300k Founded: October 2012

Tasting Table Acquires Flavour. The New York-based restaurant discovery app which mines social graph data to find noteworthy restaurants in addition to collecting reviews from critics, bloggers, and industry experts, will help Tasting Table provide restaurant recommendations that are more personalized and curated. Users can search by city, by collection, or by dish, and make reservations through a connection with OpenTable. Flavour is available in eight cities, and Tasting Table plans to collaborate with Flavour’s team of developers, engineers, and designers to enrich user experience through expanding the app’s services.

Announced: 06/16/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $1.1 million Founded: 2014

BigBasket Acquires Delyver. The Bangalore-based hyper local ecommerce platform. which uses its own logistics technology to connect offline retailers to customers in the neighborhood, will manage BigBasket’s new launch of one-hour delivery service in Bangalore. Delyver will retain its brand name and function as an independent entity. In addition, BigBasket will provide funds for Delyver to expand into eight major cities and 50 tier-II cities, and increase team size in existing cities.

Announced: 06/12/15 Terms: cash and stock Previous Investment: $1 million Founded: March 2010

Brit + Co Acquires Snapguide. The San Francisco-based publishing system lets people create step-by-step mobile guides, and will be renamed as “Snapguide by Brit + Co.” Brit + Co, an online lifestyle and e-commerce platform focusing on DIY, plans to use content from the acquisition to build out its platform. TechCrunch reports the acquisition is an asset sale, covering the Snapguide’s website and app, its user network, DIY guides, and technology platform.

Announced: 06/09/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: $10 million Founded: 2011

Fexy Media Acquires Roadfood.com and SeriousEats. According to the New York Times, Fexy Media launched in 2014 and is making acquisitions as part of its broader strategy to become a force in the digital food media space. Fexy has plans to re-energize the Roadfood.com, which features regional and small town highway eateries across America, to boost its appeal to the younger generation. The core offering of Serious Eats won’t be changed beyond increasing its video content, as the acquisition will provide Serious Eats with new technology to bolster its digital video offering and opportunities for partnership with Fexy’s other portfolio companies.

Announced: 06/02/15 Terms: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: Roadfood.com: 2000; Serious Eats: 2006

FUNDING

MangoPlate raises $6.1m. The Seoul-based mobile application for personalized dining recommendations features restaurant reviews and pictures crowdsourced from real users. Using algorithms and location data, MangoPlate generates customized restaurant recommendations and restaurant deals based on a user’s whereabouts and cuisine preference. The company aims to double the restaurants it captures in Korea from 40 percent to 80 percent and roll out money making features, such as enabling restaurant owners to provide targeted deals to consumers who have shown interest in their restaurants. Funding will also be used to test overseas markets.

Announced: 06/30/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Qualcomm Ventures (lead), SoftBank Ventures Korea, YJ Capital Previous Investment: $900k Founded: April 2013

Bento Raises $1.5m. The San Francisco-based on-demand food delivery service specializes in delivering Asian food. Customers can choose from a menu of meals and have the option of specifying low-carb or gluten-free selections. To ensure quick delivery, Bento delivers curbside only. TechCrunch notes that Bento has seen 15 percent growth per week, and plans to expand its service into East Bay.

Announced: 06/25/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: LAUNCH Fund (lead), Slow Ventures, 500 Startups Mobile Collective fund, FundersClub Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: March 2015

Postmates Raises $80m. The San Francisco-based online delivery service is a developer of consumer-facing logistics software that dispatches and guides couriers through major metropolitan areas to deliver local goods including prepared food, groceries, and retail goods. The company currently operates across 28 different markets and has reportedly surpassed 2.5 million deliveries. TechCrunch reports that while one weakness of Postmates has been its high delivery costs, which ranges from $5 to $20, the company has addressed the problem somewhat through its newly launched Postmates Merchant Program, which charges a flat $4.99 delivery fee for over a thousand partner restaurants. To further undercut its rivals, Postmates plans to roll out a new service in August that will charge customers around $1 for deliveries of food and other goods to high-density zip codes at peak times. The company will also use the funding to move into a range of other areas of delivery, including groceries and healthcare and beauty products.

Announced: 06/25/2015 Valuation: $400 million to $500 million Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: Tiger Global Management (lead), Slow Ventures, Spark Capital Previous Investment: $58.0 million Founded: May 2011

VenueNext Raises $9m. The Palo Alto-based app for venues is designed to help attendees and operators at live events by connecting to the venue’s food and retail POS systems, e-ticketing solution, and parking pass validation systems, to offer live, in-app content for fans at the stadium. The VenueNext technology is available for licensing and provides both a customized guest-facing app and a backend platform for the venue to use. The company has had its first rollout at Levi’s Stadium, which sold $1.25 million of snacks and merchandise and experienced a 30 percent app adoption rate. VenueNext is expected to expand in 30 venues by the end of the year, going beyond sports stadiums to other venues, such as hotels.

Announced: 06/24/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Causeway Media Partners (lead), Live Nation Labs, Twitter Ventures Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Kitchenbowl Raises $1.3m. The Seattle-based startup describes itself as a community in which users can share and discover recipes. The platform aims to reinvent the recipe format to make it accessible to millennial users, emphasizing the use of photos in teaching users to cook. GeekWire reports that the average recipe contributor has uploaded about five recipes with six to nine photos. The capital injection will be used to help Kitchenbowl grow its team and platform.

Announced: 06/22/2015 Stage: Angel Participating Angel Investors: Jon Staenberg, Kurt Dammeier, Bill Moore, Scott Svenson Previous Investment: $1.0 million Founded: 2013

Offpeak Raises $800k. The Selangor, Malaysia based-restaurant booking and discovery platform startup focuses on helping restaurants get reservations during off peak hours. Available as iOS and Android apps, Offpeak offers recommendations based on a user’s location, and enables users to book tables at discount with as little as 10 minutes advanced notice. The capital will be used for expansion into other Southeast markets starting with Bangkok, establishment of local teams, and strengthening its marketing signal.

Announced: 06/22/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Gobi Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2014

HolaChef Raises $3.1m. The Mumbai-based web and mobile app for food delivery offers users a different menu from which to choose food every day. Professional and amateur chefs can sell meals once approved by the company, which will then package and deliver the food. HolaChef is currently serving 1000 orders a day, and plans to use the funds to set up a central kitchen and invest in modern infrastructure, technology and delivery.

Announced: 06/20/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Kalaari Capital (Lead), India Quotient Previous Investment: $320k Founded: 2014

La Ruche qui dit Oui Raises $9m. The Paris-based startup makes it possible for consumers to buy directly from local farmers and foodmakers at nearby “ruches.” The company employs independent contractors as ruche managers to facilitate the local marketplace. TechCrunch notes that because vendors set their own prices and receive 80 percent of the proceeds from sales, prices are competitive without being a “race to the bottom.” There are currently over 600 ruches in France, and the company additionally operates in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Funding will be used to solidify existing markets.

Announced: 06/16/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Felix Capital (Lead), Union Square Ventures (Lead), Quadia, XAnge Private Equity Previous Investment: $4.1 million Founded: 2011

FoodAbhi Raises Seed Funding. The Mumbai-based online tiffin marketplace aims to distinguish itself by catering to both daily and on-demand meals. The company currently partners with over 30 vendors, which are listed free of charge on the company website, and has delivered over 15,000 meals. To ensure quality, FoodAbhi packages meals itself and organizes surprise audits to check on hygiene, ingredients used. The company will use the funding to expand its technology and its scale, with plans to build apps that track deliveries and vendor activities. FoodAbhi additionally plans to expand into Pune, Bangalore, and eventually Delhi.

Announced: 06/15/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2013

Lavu Raises $15m. The Albuquerque-based provider of point of sales systems for restaurants is currently being used by over 4,000 restaurants in 86 countries. Lavu’s system can track sales and is customizable for coffee shops, food trucks, bars, and nightclubs. As with other next generation POS services, Lavu asserts that its services are less expensive than those of traditional POS systems, which can charge tens of thousands of dollars up front. The capital will be used towards sales and marketing.

Announced: 06/15/2015 Stage: Series A Participating Institutional Investors: Aldrich Capital Partners Previous Investment: Not Disclosed million Founded: 2010

Blue Apron Raises $135m. The New York-based meal delivery service company packages a recipe and pre-portioned ingredients that are delivered to customers’ homes on a weekly basis. In the past six months, Blue Apron has tripled its volume and is selling 3 million meals per month. Blue Apron will use the funding to scale its growing network of farms, suppliers, and fulfillment capabilities throughout the country, and has plans to invest in automation and add custom fulfillment software tools, enabling the company to reach home chefs in over 99% of the continental United States.

Announced: 06/09/2015 Valuation: $2 billion Stage: Series D Participating Institutional Investors: Fidelity Investments (Lead), Bessemer Venture Partners, BoxGroup, Stripes Group Previous Investment: $58 million Founded: 2012

Swiggy Raises $16.5m. The Bangalore, India-based food delivery mobile app accepts orders from users and employs personnel to pick up and deliver food from restaurants to customers’ doorsteps. After a recent close of $2 million in April, the current funding will be used towards expansion into other cities in India and strengthening of its brand platform. By employing its own delivery fleet, Swiggy does not have an order minimum and offers users with multiple payment options. TechCrunch notes that, as one of 14 grocery delivery startups based in India, Swiggy has seen 10x growth in order numbers in recent months and distinguishes itself with its provision of a curated list of restaurants and ensured delivery time.

Announced: 06/09/2015 Stage: Series B Participating Institutional Investors: Norwest Venture Partners (lead), Accel Partners, SAIF Partners Previous Investment: $2.0 million Founded: August 2014

Delivery Hero Raises $110m. The Berlin-based network of online food ordering sites now features a network of 200,000 restaurants across 34 countries. Over 10 million orders each month are processed by Delivery Hero, which generates $165 million in monthly sales. The capital infusion will be used “for selective acquisitions and intensive product innovation.” TechCrunch reports that this could suggest further expansion into other countries, as well as other food product markets, such as meal kits, grocery delivery, or high end restaurant delivery.

Announced: 06/07/2015 Valuation: $3.1 billion Stage: Private Equity  Participating Institutional Investors: Not Disclosed (“leading public market investors”) Previous Investment: $1.3 billion  Founded: September 2010

TabbedOut Raises $21.5m. The Austin-based mobile payment app is currently installed in over 10,000 venues in the U.S. and allows patrons to open, review, and securely pay their tab. Restaurants and bars can use TabbedOut to track and use customer baskets and behavior to create comprehensive consumer databases that offer actionable insights into their customer’s spending habits. Proceeds from the round will be used to accelerate user acquisition through the implementation of automated loyalty and rewards programs, integration with other mobile consumer services, and expansion into 20 new U.S. markets.

Announced: 06/04/2015 Valuation: $78 million Stage: Series C Participating Institutional Investors: Wellington Management Company (lead), New Enterprise Associates, Morgan Creek Capital Management Previous Investment: $17.5 million Founded: June 2009

EatTreat Raises $350k. The New Delhi-based social media platform for food lovers started out as a Facebook group focused on recipes, restaurant reviews, articles on cookbooks, and other food related content. With seed funding to build the website and make key hires to bolster company infrastructure, EatTreat will soon launch its independent web and mobile platforms which connect end users with service providers. EatTreat will feature new innovations in food, and aims to generate dialogue among foodies and revenues through advertisement.

Announced: 06/01/2015 Stage: Seed Participating Institutional Investors: Divitas Capital Previous Investment: Not Disclosed Founded: 2015

iFood Raises $50m. The São Paulo-based food delivery company enables users to order food through its website and mobile apps. Through iFood’s platform, users can consult restaurant menus and prices and select the desired delivery location to make their purchase. TechCrunch notes that Brazil is experiencing 21% year over year growth, making it the leader in the burgeoning space of Latin American e-commerce services. iFood captures 80 percent of the online restaurant delivery market and expects to hit one million deliveries per month by the end of 2015. Funding will be used towards growth in new cities and continued development of its team and infrastructure.

Announced: 06/01/2015 Stage: Series E Participating Institutional Investors: Just Eat, Movile Previous Investment: $11.9 million Founded: May 2011

PARTNERSHIPS

Jawbone Partners with Yummly to help users to be informed about their daily food intake via UP devices.

Men’s Health Partners with Chef’d to bring Men’s Health branded meals to consumers’ homes.

DoorDash Partners with Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to deliver prepared foods, including sandwiches and wraps.

INDUSTRY LANDSCAPE

As The Food Tech & Media ecosystem continues to see rapid change, Rosenheim Advisors created The Food Tech & Media Industry Map to help entrepreneurs, participants and investors understand this quickly evolving landscape. Let us know about your recent or upcoming funding, partnerships or acquisitions here.

Check out the 2014 Annual Report and last month’s round-up.

 

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The post Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: June 2015 appeared first on Food+Tech Connect.

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