London-based Growth Kitchen, a FoodTech startup that builds satellite kitchen networks, announced it received £3 million ($3.9 million) in seed funding Friday (April 1).
Growth Kitchen said this investment will help it continue to “crack” the delivery kitchen model, where restaurants can grow like a Software-as-a-Service company while still owning their business.
The company added that by leveraging technology and data science, restaurants can grow from just a handful of kitchens to hundreds of sustainable, high-volume locations in Europe.
The investment team was led by PactVC, which included on-demand grocery delivery company Gorillas co-founders Ronny Shibley, Jörg Kattner and Felix Chrobog, who once served as general manager for U.K.-based Deliveroo.
The round also included TwinklHive CEO Jonathan Seaton and Robert Laurence, CEO of Resolution Property. Both Shibley and Seaton were appointed to the board of directors.
“In a world where we take Ubers and watch Netflix, we’ve accepted cooking as the norm for too long,” Máté Kun, co-founder of Growth Kitchen, said in a statement. “Building on the success of food delivery apps, we are introducing a step-change in how we eat.”
Kun said the company is on track to open 40 new hubs by 2024 across the United Kingdom and major European markets, making it the default growth partner for high-delivery-volume restaurants across Europe.
Last fall, PYMNTS reported ghost kitchens have gone from an enterprising model to an industry mainstay in short time. That speed has created its own issues because the infrastructure is unable to evolve quickly enough to keep up with the demand.
See also: Growth of Ghost Kitchens Threatened by Outdated Digital Payment Tech
“The largest mistake [ghost kitchens operators make] is assuming which channels the guest wants to order on,” Steve Simoni, CEO of contactless ordering and payment technology provider Bbot, told PYMNTS.
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