Fooda
| Private | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | |
| Founded 📆 | 2011 |
| Founder 👔 | Orazio Buzza |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , , |
Area served 🗺️ | Select cities in the U.S. |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| 🌐 Website | www |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Fooda, Inc. is a Chicago-based food-service catering technology company that specializes in placing daily restaurant popups inside office building lobbies, company lunch rooms, and cafeterias. The company currently offers a range of business-focused food services that include popup locations serviced daily by different local restaurants (where food is sold directly to office workers), employer-paid meal programs, corporate event catering, and fully managed multi-station cafeteria spaces.
History[edit]
Fooda was founded in 2011.[1], when Echo Global Logistics President and COO Orazio Buzza[2] identified the need for a more modern employee lunch program at the company. After proving the concept at EGL, Buzza secured funding from Groupon backers Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell to launch Fooda as a standalone business.
The company expanded into the greater New York City market in 2013[3][4][5]. In 2014, Fooda began an aggressive growth initiative[6] that saw them launch the service in major metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia[7] and Boston. In 2016, the company began offering a new service that replaced traditional cafeteria stations with food sold by local restaurants. Fooda is currently available in Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Orange County, Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville[8], New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Jose, Seattle, and Washington D.C. Fooda's major clients include Hyatt, GM, Deloitte, Salesforce, and Hulu.
In 2017, the company was a winner of the Chicago Innovation Award[9], which recognizes the city's "most innovative products, services and companies." In 2018, Fooda was named to Entrepreneur's Top Company Cultures List[10] for medium-sized companies, placing at number 38.
Funding[edit]
$1 million in seed money from Lightbank in 2011, and $325,000 from Groupon in 2012. In 2016, Fooda raised $5.9 million in funding[11]. In 2017, Fooda secured another $12.5 million in fundraising[12][13]. Both rounds were led by Valor Equity Partners. As of January 2019, the company’s total equity offering is over $30 million[14]
References[edit]
- ↑ Cooke, Jayna. "'Fooda' Fight: An Interview With Dustin Lasky And Shane Jones". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Bomkamp, Samantha. "Fooda, pop-up lunch for office dwellers, eyes growth beyond Chicago". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Zax, David. "Fooda, A "Virtual Cafeteria" For Your Office, Expands To NYC". FastCompany. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Blau, Reuven. "Brooklyn restaurants take turns in Fooda's office 'food truck'". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Orlando, Dan. "Fooda hopes to win NYC stomachs by bringing local restaurants right into your office". New York Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Sweeney, Brigid. "Lightbank's Fooda lunch service is going national". Crain's Chicago Business. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Hilario, Kenneth. "From San Francisco to Philadelphia: Former Food Network star chef uproots pork belly burger concept". Philadelphia Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Sichko, Adam. "First look: Emery's newest office building aims to win the 'amenity race'". Nashville Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Zax, David. "Here's Who Won Chicago Innovation Awards This Year". NBC Chicago. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ "2018 Top Company Cultures List". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Graham, Meg. "Fooda loads up plate with $5.9 million in funding". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Rekdal, Andreas. "Fooda raises $12.5M to deliver lunch across the country". BuiltInChicago. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ Wilkins, Pete. "What $600M RXBar Acquisition By Kellogg's Says About Chicago's Simple Food And Beverage Industry". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
- ↑ "Fooda". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
External links[edit]
This article "Fooda" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Fooda. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
