Startup Ghost Financial Raises $2.5M in Early Funding

Ghost Financial, a financial services startup, emerged from stealth Tuesday (April 5) and announced it has raised $2.5 million from pre-seed investors to further its banking-style ghost kitchen products.

Ghost kitchens are restaurants that serve customers through food delivery apps. According to the press release, Ghost Financial offers ghost kitchen operators help with insurance, loans, credit cards and other various financial products.

These ghost kitchens became more popular during the pandemic, as food delivery became ubiquitous while many people were stuck inside during the 2020 quarantine months.

These kitchens only focus on delivery, and usually buy their inventory using cash, checks or debit, rather than credit — which John Meyer, Ghost Financial founder and CEO, said can cut down on their growth.

“What seems to be lacking is a very clear banking and financial layer to support the … ghost kitchen industry,” Meyer said, according to a Reuters report Tuesday. He added that while the popularity began during the pandemic, it seems to be a going concern that is not slowing down.

The company is based in Austin, Texas. Some of its pre-seed investors include HOF Capital, 305 Ventures, Hustle Fund and Active Capital, among others..

In other news related to the burgeoning sector, PYMNTS wrote that Deliveroo planned to trial its rapid grocery service, Deliveroo Hop, with supermarket chain Waitrose in February.

Read more: Deliveroo to Test Rapid Grocery Delivery in London

To offer the service, Waitrose opened a delivery-only store in Bermondsey, London. The report noted that those living around the store would have delivery times cut to around 10 minutes, or half of the time of a usual delivery.

Waitrose has an existing partnership with Deliveroo, and Deliveroo has been using grocery delivery to help scale and justify its model. At the time, Deliveroo Chief Financial Officer Adam Miller said the company’s goal is to give a sense of “the relative unit economics on grocery versus restaurant — not quite as good as restaurant economics.”