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This morning MealMe.ai, a food search engine, announced that it has closed a $900,000 pre-seed round. Palm Drive Capital led the round, with participation from Slow Ventures and CP Ventures.
TechCrunch first became familiar with MealMe when it presented as part of the Techstars Atlanta demo day last October, mentioning it in a roundup of favorite startups from a group of the accelerator’s startup cohorts.
The company’s product allows users to search for food, or a restaurant. It then displays price points from various food-delivery apps for what the user wants to eat and have delivered. And, notably, MealMe allows for in-app checkout, regardless of the selected provider.
The service could boost pricing and delivery-speed transparency amongst the different apps that help folks eat, like DoorDash and Uber Eats. But Mealme didn’t start out looking to build a search engine. Instead it took a few changes in direction to get there.
From social network to search engine
MealMe is an example of a startup whose first idea proved only directionally correct. The company began life as a food-focused social network, co-founder Matthew Bouchner told TechCrunch. That iteration of the service allowed users to view posted food pictures, and then find ordering options for what they saw.
While still operating as a social network, MealMe applied to both Y Combinator and Techstars, but wasn’t accepted at either.
The startup discovered that some of its users were posting food pics simply to get the service to tell them which delivery services would be able to bring them what they wanted. From that learning the company focused on building a food search engine, allowing users to search for restaurants, and then vet various delivery options and prices. That iteration of the product got the company into Techstars Atlanta, eventually leading to the demo day that TechCrunch reviewed.
During its time in Techstars, the company adjusted its model to not merely link to DoorDash and others, but to handle checkout inside of its own application. This captures more gross merchandize value (GMV) inside of MealMe, Bouchner explained in an interview. The capability was rolled out in September of 2020.
Since then the company has seen rapid growth, which it measures at around 20% week-on-week. During TechCrunch’s interview with MealMe, the company said that it had reached a GMV run rate of more than $500,000, and was scaling toward the $1 million mark. In the intervening weeks the company passed the $1 million GMV run-rate threshold.
MealMe was slightly coy on its business model, but it appears to make margin between what it charges users for orders and the total revenue it passes along to food delivery apps.
TechCrunch was curious about platform risk at MealMe; could the company get away with offering price comparison and ordering across multiple third-party delivery services without raising the ire of the companies behind those apps? At the time of our interview, Bouchner said that his company had not seen pushback from the services it sends users to. His company’s goal is to grow quickly, become a useful revenue source for the DoorDashes of the world, and then reach out for some of formal agreement, he explained.
“We continue to be a powerful revenue generator and drive thousands of orders to food delivery services per week,” the co-founder said in a written statement. Certainly MealMe found investors more excited by its growth than concerned about Uber Eats or other apps cutting the startup off from their service.
What first caught my eye about MealMe was the realization of how much I would have used it in my early 20s. Perhaps the company can find enough users like my younger self to help it scale to sufficient size that it can go to the major food ordering companies and demand a cut, not merely avoid being cut off.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/24/mealme-raises-900000-for-its-food-search-engine/
We love nothing more than highlighting notable early-stage startups, and you’ll find plenty of them in the spotlight on March 3 at TC Sessions: Justice 2021, a virtual conference exploring diversity, inclusion and the human labor that powers tech. You do not want to miss meeting and learning more about these impressive early-stage founders — all participants in the TC Include Program.
Not familiar with TC Include? TechCrunch partners with various founder organizations who act as advisors and nominate promising early-stage founders to participate in the program. In a collective collaboration with VC organizations like Kleiner Perkins, Salesforce Ventures and Initialized Capital and the founder organizations, TC Include provides educational resources and mentorship over the course of the year to help program participants develop and succeed.
You’ll have plenty of opportunity to meet and network with TC Include founders, and you won’t want to miss their live pitch feedback session. Each TC Include founder gets a 60-second pitch to a TechCrunch staffer. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to structure your pitch and pick up a few tips and strategies. Who knows? The pitch you improve could be your own.
We’ve already announced the TC Include startups affiliated with partner organizations Black Female Founders (here) and the Female Founder Alliance (here). Today, we’re thrilled to share with you just some of the early-stage founders affiliated with StartOut and the LatinX Startup Alliance.
StartOut
Endo Industries: Endo Industries sells cannabis plants and, through collaboration with farmers, is building a platform that helps operators scale brands grounded in equity, diversity and wellness. Founded by Nancy Do.
Kyndoo: Kyndoo is a data platform for solving social media’s biggest problems — fraud, attribution and content safety. It helps brands avoid working with #FakeFamous and helps them find companies that share their mission and values. Founded by Kelly McDonald.
Thimble: Thimble is a monthly subscription service that teaches kids robotics and coding skills through a curated STEM curriculum, robotics and coding kits and live, build-along classes. Founded by Oscar Pedroso.
LatinX Startup Alliance
Hoy Health: Hoy Health, a digital health company with a bilingual platform, provides access to primary care products and services, at low cost, to underserved communities. Founded by Mario Anglada.
Caribu: Caribu helps kids have virtual playdates with family and friends by playing games, reading and coloring together in an interactive video-call. Founded by Max Tuchman.
Pandocap.co: Pandocap is a financial media company built around the capital markets. Bilingual content focuses on easy-to-understand information and highlights diverse voices through different strategies. Founded by Laura Moreno.
TC Sessions: Justice 2021 takes place on March 3. Check out the event agenda, buy your pass today, and discover the opportunities that come from building a more diverse, inclusive and just industry.
Virtual events platform Hopin is hopin’ for a mega valuation.
According to multiple sources who spoke with TechCrunch, the company, which was founded in mid-2019, is running around the fundraise circuit and perhaps nearing the end of a fundraise in which it is looking to raise roughly $400 million at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion for its Series C. Two sources implied that the valuation could reach as high as $6 billion, but with greater dilution based on some offered terms the company has received. The deal is in flux, and both the round size and valuation are subject to change.
One source told TechCrunch that the company’s ARR has grown to $60 million, implying a valuation multiple of 80-100x if the valuation we’re hearing pans out. That sort of multiple wouldn’t be out of line with other major fundraises for star companies with SaaS-based business models.
Hopin has been on a fundraise tear in recent months. The company raised $125 million at a $2.125 billion valuation late last year for its Series B, which came just a few months after it raised a Series A of $40 million over the summer and a $6.5 million seed round last winter. All told, the roughly 20-month-old company has raised a known $171.4 million in VC according to Crunchbase.
When we last reported on the company, Hopin’s ARR had gone from $0 to $20 million, while its overall userbase had grown from essentially zero to 3.5 million users in November. The company reported then that it had 50,000 groups using its platform.
Hopin’s platform is designed to translate the in-person events experience into a virtual one, providing tools to recreate the experience of walking exhibition floors, networking one-on-one and spontaneously joining fireside chats and panels. It’s become a darling in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen most business and educational conferences canceled in the midst of mass restrictions on domestic and international travel worldwide.
It’s probably also useful to note that our business team uses Hopin to run all of TechCrunch’s editorial events, including Disrupt, Early Stage, Extra Crunch Live and next week’s TechCrunch Sessions: Justice 2021 event (these software selections and their costs are — thankfully — outside the purview of our editorial team).
Hopin may be the mega-leader of the virtual events space right now, but it isn’t the only startup trying to take on this suddenly vital industry. Run The World raised capital last year, Welcome wants to be the ‘Ritz-Carlton for event platforms,’ Spotify is getting into the business, Clubhouse is arguably a contender here, InEvent raised a seed earlier this month and Hubilo is another entrant which nabbed a check from Lightspeed a few months ago. Plus, quite literally dozens of other startups have either started in the space or are pivoting toward it.
We have reached out to Hopin for comment.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/24/vcs-are-chasing-hopin-upwards-of-5-6b-valuation/
SpaceX’s first all-civilian human spaceflight mission, which will carry four passengers to orbit using a Crew Dragon capsule later this year if all goes to plan, will include one passenger selected by a panel of judges weighing the submissions of entrepreneurs. The panel will include Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Fast Company Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Mehta, YouTuber Mark Rober and Bar Rescue TV host Jon Taffer. It may seem like an eclectic bunch, but there is some reason to the madness.
This seat is one of four on the ride – the first belongs to contest and mission sponsor Jared Isaacman, the founder of Shift4 Payments and a billionaire who has opted to spend a not insignificant chunk of money funding the flight. The second, Isaacman revealed earlier this week, will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital employee and cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux.
That leaves two more seats, and they’re being decided by two separate contests. One is open to anyone who is a U.S. citizen and who makes a donation to St. Jude via the ongoing charitable contribution drive. The other will be decided by this panel of judges, and will be chosen from a pool of applicants who have build stores on Shift4’s Shift4Shop e-commerce platform.
That’s right: This absurdly expensive and pioneering mission to space is also a growth marketing campaign for Isaacman’s Shopify competitor. But to be fair, the store of the winning entrant doesn’t have to be news – existing customers can also apply and are eligible.
The stated criteria for deciding the winner is “a business owner or entrepreneur the exhibits ingenuity, innovation and determination” so in other words it could be just about anybody. I’m extremely curious to see what Benioff, Mehta, Rober (also a former NASA JPL engineer in addition to a YouTuber) and Taffer come up with between them as a winner.
The Inspiration4 mission is currently set to fly in the fourth quarter of 2021, and mission specifics including total duration and target orbit are yet to be determined.
As far as fundraising goes, Berkshire Grey is in pretty good shape. When I visited its Massachusetts headquarters last year, following a massive $263 million Series B, the company discussed some pretty aggressive growth plans. Mind you, that was before the pandemic has really touched down in the U.S. in a meaningful way.
If anything, Covid-19 has accelerated interest in automation, as companies look to safeguard themselves from the inevitable effects of future pandemics. Today, Berkshire Gray announced its intention to become the latest tech company to go public by way of SPAC. The deal, which finds its merging with Revolution Acceleration Acquisition, could value the company at up to $2.7 billion.
In a release tied to the news, BG cites a 5% current warehouse automation figure – a number I’ve heard tossed around a lot in relation to these deals. It certainly points big potential for growth among retailers looking to streamline fulfillment, logistics and the like. For many, it’s as simple as finding a way to stay competitive with the likes of Amazon, which has massively bolstered its own robotics efforts through acquisitions like Kiva Systems.
BG offers a kind of ground-up solution for close to full automation. The technology separates it from more plug and play automation solutions like Locus and Fetch Robotics. Their offerings are more focused on automating companies faster and more cheaply. BG’s ecosystem includes a variety of different robotics, including picking, gripping and image sensing, with north of 300 patents in the space.
“Consumer expectations have changed, putting more pressure on supply chain operations to get the right goods to the right places at the right times, as efficiently as possible,” CEO Tom Wagner said in a release tied to the news. “Over the last 12 months the pandemic amplified the already high pressure to transform, so today it is no longer a question of if companies might transform but how quickly. We are incredibly excited about this transaction, which will enable Berkshire Grey to accelerate growth and provide new and existing customers with our leading robotics solutions.”
The deal would bring up up to $413 million in cash for the company. It says it plans to use the funding to address a backlog of customers and build out an international presence. It’s expected to close in Q2.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/24/robotics-company-berkshire-grey-to-go-public-via-spac/
