NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lunchbox, the next-gen online ordering engine for restaurants, announced it has raised a $20 million Series-A round to further accelerate its growth as the company positions itself as the future of digital commerce solutions. Coatue led the investment in this round alongside other prominent industry innovators and investors in Lunchbox’s seed round. Coatue’s Rahul Kishore and Bennett Siegel will join Lunchbox’s board of directors as part of the new investment.
“Our mission is to help restaurants survive this pandemic and thrive beyond it. When we started Lunchbox 18 months ago, we wanted to help restaurants with a strong ethos and identity speak to their guests directly. That is more important now more than ever before,” says Nabeel Alamgir, CEO, and Co-Founder of Lunchbox. “We’re honored to be here with the Coatue team and to learn from their vast experience working with brands like Doordash, InstaCart, and many world-leading companies. Together we are ready to help restaurants realize a new level of success.”
Alamgir has long been connected to the restaurant industry since immigrating to the United States. He first entered the restaurant industry as the original busboy at NYC-based Bareburger and then climbed the ladder to become their first CMO. He left in 2019 to found Lunchbox with his co-founders, Andrew Boryk and Hadi Rashid, and has since grown the company into a leader in empowering restaurants to reclaim ownership of their digital commerce. This allows them to deliver an optimal customer experience, gain access to powerful and actionable customer data and helps them achieve higher profits. Through strong, deep integrations with ordering, marketing, loyalty, and delivery services, Lunchbox is able to deliver a full suite of services through one affordable platform, helping restaurants reclaim lost revenue from working directly with third-party platforms.
Joining Coatue in this round are renowned celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, Behance founder Scott Belsky, Former Venmo COO Michael Vaughan, HelloFresh founder Bryan Ciambella, Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl, and Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani. Lunchbox’s initial investors, 645 and Primary Ventures, are also joining this round.
Lunchbox plans to use the capital to scale growth nationally to serve the restaurant industry’s need for efficient and revenue-driven solutions to sustain the current economic depression. Lunchbox will also focus on acquiring top-tier talent and invest in further development on its platform and expand to new markets.
“Local businesses have been hard hit this year, but we think Lunchbox can help enable these businesses to move online, engage with their customers digitally, and build back stronger than ever,” said Rahul Kishore, Managing Director, at Coatue. Bennett Siegel, Partner at Coatue, added, “Lunchbox’s software turns every restaurant into a tech company. We’re excited to partner with Lunchbox as they continue to reinvent the way restaurants reach, engage, and serve customers wherever they dine.”
Lunchbox’s all-in-one platform has provided a viable and sustainable alternative for restaurants that have grappled with reduced revenues due to the pandemic. On average, restaurants using the Lunchbox platform have seen a 30% increase in sales across their brand. Lunchbox has grown its customer base by 925% within the last year and now counts leading restaurant brands like Clean Juice, Bareburger, and Fuku among its partners. The company also recently partnered with global lifestyle leader sbe to launch its first virtual food hall to unite all their high-end restaurant brands under one next-gen app and web experience.
“Lunchbox has proven itself to be an invaluable partner in future-proofing our ghost kitchen business and tapping into the massive potential in the online ordering boom. We’re looking forward to working with them as they start this new stage of growth and are eagerly anticipating more innovation from the platform,” says sbe and C3 Founder & CEO Sam Nazarian.
Key to Lunchbox’s recent growth has been the strategic partnerships that add new capabilities to the platform, enabling it to provide even more added value to restaurant platforms. The company recently partnered with restaurant technology leader Ordermark to integrate with its online ordering management platform to provide restaurants with more opportunities to grow and retain revenue. Lunchbox also partnered with Beam Social Impact to make it easier for restaurants to increase social responsibility by easily facilitating nonprofit donations from guest orders. Lunchbox has also begun venturing into autonomous delivery with a partnership with Sodexo and Kiwibot.
To learn more about Lunchbox, visit www.lunchbox.io
About Lunchbox
Lunchbox empowers brands with a next-gen online ordering engine that drives sales and engagement through powerful growth marketing tools to help create stronger relationships with their guests. Lunchbox works with industry-leading restaurants like Bareburger and World Famous Chef David Chang’s Fuku to build the best-in-class digital ordering experiences that drive returns and sales, all while moving guests away from third-party sites. To learn more, visit www.lunchbox.io
About Coatue
Coatue is one of the largest technology investment platforms in the world with approximately $30 billion in assets under management. Our dedicated team of engineers and data scientists works closely with investment professionals to add value to founders and executive teams in our portfolio. With venture, growth, and public funds, we back entrepreneurs from around the globe and at every stage of growth. Some of our private investments have included Airtable, Ant Financial, Anaplan, ByteDance, Chime, Databricks, DoorDash, Instacart, Meituan, Snap, Snowflake and Spotify.
