Technology

Virtual restaurant start-up lands $7M in funding

January 27, 2021

Mealco, a NYC-based start-up allowing chefs and restaurants to create virtual restaurant concepts, has landed $7 million in seed funding to upgrade its technological infrastructure and expand to more locations. Investors include Rucker Park Capital with participation from FJLabs, which has invested in Uber, Postmates, Slice, Delivery Hero and Chowbus. Reshape, 2048.vc, Oceans Ventures, and WLP joined the round, together with angel investors such as Jonathan Zabusky, former CEO of Seamless, according to a company press release.

"We had the opportunity to see the evolution of the food ecosystem firsthand in the past few years," Wes Tang-Wymer, general partner at Rucker Park Capital, said in the release. "The time is ripe to embrace all these advances to launch new brands in a new format. In Mealco, we found the most compelling model to push the frontier of restaurant innovation further by empowering chefs to take 'idea-to-table' faster and cheaper than ever before."

Mealco provides chefs and restaurants with a platform to develop and manage their restaurant brands while avoiding lease commitments and other prohibitive upfront costs, Mealco Founder and CEO Daniel Simon said.

"The cost of opening a restaurant can reach millions of dollars while investing years of work in getting the restaurant going from concept to reality," he said in the release. "Mealco redefines this process by creating delivery-first virtual restaurants."

Chefs gain access to Mealco's dashboard, which provides real-time insights on menu performance and customer feedback in a few clicks.

"Mealco's platform allows chefs to focus on their passion for creating amazing food concepts," Simon said. "With us, they can now open a virtual restaurant within a few weeks and get access to real-time data that will help them maximize their chances of success."

With its initial launch in New York, Mealco's restaurant concepts are now available in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. It has a waitlist of 50 New York-based chefs and plans to expand to more locations with new chefs and operators in Q1 2021.