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Meal Kit Maker Blue Apron Announces $135M Dollar Deal

June 10, 2015

Following the heals of Delivery Hero’s recent $110M funding announcement, two additional online food delivery companies have announced the close of respective funding deals. Blue Apron, a New York-based meal delivery service, recently sealed a $135M Series D funding deal led by Fidelity Management and Research Company. The funding gives Blue Apron a $2B valuation. To date, Blue Apron has secured $193M in funding from 15 different investors, including this recent deal.

 

Blue Apron claims to offer consumers “a better way to cook,” providing deliveries of fresh ingredients with easy-to-follow recipes from a wide variety of cuisines. Each meal takes roughly 35 minutes to prepare and consists of between 500 to 700 calories. Blue Apron hosts a series of guest chefs and promises to never repeat the same recipe in a year.

 

In order to keep the program both waistline and wallet friendly, Blue Apron offers a variety of pricing options. The two-person plan, for example, offers three meals per week at the cost of $9.99 per person. Shipping is always free and the user can choose the delivery days that best fit his or her schedule. The ingredients arrive in a refrigerated box so the food stays fresh even if the user is not home at the time of delivery.

 

According to the company, Blue Apron has been filling roughly three million meal orders per month. At an average price of $10 per meal, that totals at least $360M in annual revenue. In November 2014, the company reported hitting an average of one million meals per month, providing further evidence of Blue Apron’s rapid and increasing growth.

 

On the subject of the recent funding deal, Blue Apron co-founder and CEO Matt Zalzberg wrote, “Our mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone. This financing will allow us to further improve the efficiency of our model, from sourcing to fulfillment, in order to bring our customers a level of quality that has never been available at scale before.”

 

In April 2014, Blue Apron sealed a $50M Series C deal at a value of $450M. With the new funds, Blue Apron hopes to add new custom fulfillment software tools, automation technology, and new fulfillment centers.

 

The other company to recently snag some cash is Bangalore-based Swiggy, an online service with a carefully curated takeout delivery service that targets busy working professionals and young folks. Swiggy secured a $16.5M Series B round led by Norwest Venture Partners, existing investors Accel Partners, and SAIF Partners.

 

Launched in August 2014, the company has enlisted its own delivery fleet that uses a routing algorithm to optimize the drivers’ efficiency and speed. Many online food delivery services rely on the restaurant’s staff to make the delivery, which can often lead to lag time as the order is communicated to the restaurant. Swiggy plans to use the new dose of funding to mobilize its expansion into several other cities in India after it’s recent launches in Gurgaon and Hyderabad.

 

India’s food delivery market is valued at roughly $6B and Swiggy marks the fourteenth India-based food delivery service to have secured funding in the past year. Despite an increasingly saturated market, Swiggy is setting itself apart by curating a list of restaurants and dishes and providing users with an incredibly precise delivery time estimate. According to Swiggy founder Sriharsha Majety, the company has experienced a ten-fold increase in orders during the past few months with roughly half of those orders coming from the mobile app.

 

The recent uptick in online food delivery services show a growing consumer trend for convenient, easy-to-use, and on-demand food services. The market seems to be gaining the most popularity with the younger crowd and busy professionals who typically don’t have time to leave their desks for lunch, let alone cook.

 

Have news or tips? Email [email protected].

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