- Sweetgreen, a tech-enabled foodservice chain offering ‘grab and go’ salads in the US, has confidentially submitted its draft proposal for an IPO to the country’s Securities & Exchange Commission.
- According to Crunchbase, Sweetgreen has raised a total of $479 million in private funding to date from investors including Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, T Rowe Price, and celebrity backers including tennis ace Naomi Osaka and rapper Jay-Z through his Arrive fund.
- After its most recent fundraise — a $150 million Series I round in September 2019 — the company was valued at $1.5 billion.
Why it matters:
Founded in 2007, Sweetgreen is a ‘new retail’ concept combining physical stores with tech solutions. Customers can order salads through the Sweetgreen mobile app for picking up in-store, delivery, or collection at the chain’s Outpost points. Customers can also pay for in-store purchases digitally using the app.
That Sweetgreen has now filed for an IPO is indicative of growing institutional and retail investor interest in tech-driven restaurant and foodservice solutions.
No further details of the IPO proposal, such as expected share pricing, were included in the confidential filing.
