LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sweetgreen, the seasonal restaurant with the mission of connecting people to real food, today announced a $200 million financing round led by Fidelity Investments, one of the world’s largest asset management companies. JPMorgan acted as sole placement agent for this offering.
This funding round values sweetgreen at over $1 billion.
This round will bring total equity raised to approximately $365 million since inception and positions the company to create a new food platform with expanded menu categories and innovative retail formats.
"As a company we are focused on democratizing real food,” said Jonathan Neman co-founder and CEO of sweetgreen. “Our vision is to evolve from a restaurant company to a food platform that builds healthier communities around the world.”
The capital will enable the brand to continue to invest in their supply chain, social impact, and a foundation of technology, focusing on the following key areas:
- Digital Platform: With over 1M people on its digital platform and almost 50% of customer orders processed through the app or online platforms, sweetgreen believes that software focused on personalization can help to meet customers growing demand for easily accessible, real food.
- Supply Chain + Blockchain: sweetgreen views blockchain as the most viable solution available to enable radical transparency at a systematic level, which in turn can create better tasting produce and insights around each ingredient from seed to restaurant.
- Restaurant Expansion: sweetgreen plans to expand their footprint in existing and new markets.
- Outpost: sweetgreen's solution for free food delivery at the office leverages their existing digital platform and mobile app, allowing companies to offer sweetgreen to their employees. The company plans to expand the program.
- Social Impact: sweetgreen plans to further its mission to “build healthier communities by connecting people to real food” by expanding its “sweetgreen in schools program”, which reimagines school cafeterias and food education.
About sweetgreen:
Founded in 2007, sweetgreen passionately believes that real food should be convenient and accessible to everyone. With a digital first approach, customers can access its unique, habitual, and health conscious offering. Every day, across 90 restaurants, over 4,000 team members make food from scratch, using fresh ingredients and produce delivered that morning. Sweetgreen’s strong food ethos and investment in local communities has enabled them to grow into a national brand with a mission to build healthier communities by connecting people to real food.
