When Alex Canter, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate and the
fourth-generation proprietor of Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles, took over
business development operations at his great-grandfather’s restaurant,
he quickly became frustrated by the complexity involved in routing
orders from multiple food delivery platforms. Fortunately, he met
entrepreneur Mike Jacobs, who’d launched a product targeting order
fulfillment for stadium concession stands and food trucks. The two
cofounders, along with four others, fine-tuned a solution with partners
that included Kitchen United and Epson, and in under a year their
product and company — Ordermark — graduated from Boulder, Colorado-based accelerator Techstars and grew to more than 25 employees.
Now, months after moving its headquarters to a 7,200-square-foot
office in Culver City (while keeping a Denver office), Ordermark is
gearing up for growth with a fresh capital infusion. The startup today
revealed that it recently closed an $18 million series B funding round
led by Foundry Group, with participation from previous investors
TenOneTen Ventures, Vertical Venture Partners, Mucker Capital, Act One
Ventures, and Nosara Capital. The raise comes after a $9.5 million
series A in September 2018 and brings Ordermark’s total raised to over
$30 million.
CEO Canter says the funding will fuel the integration of Ordermark’s
service with existing restaurant technologies, including point of sale
(POS) systems, kitchen display systems, accounting tools, last-mile
delivery companies, and more. Additionally, he expects it will lay the
groundwork for support of emerging restaurant models, like virtual
restaurants.
“I cofounded Ordermark to help my family’s restaurant adapt and
thrive in the mobile delivery era and then realized that, as a company,
we could help other restaurants experiencing the same challenges. We’ve
been gratified to see positive results come in from our restaurant
customers nationwide,” said Canter. “So we are thrilled to have the
backing of Foundry Group to fuel our growth. We have some incredibly
cool innovations in the pipeline and look forward to bringing them to
restaurants everywhere.”
For each client, Ordermark develops a strategy and creates a bespoke
rollout plan, identifying services to bring on, negotiating rates,
setting up marketing strategies, and even designating delivery driver
pickup zones. The company supplies ordering hardware in the form of a
touchscreen Samsung tablet and custom-designed Epson printer, along with
software that integrates well over a dozen delivery providers,
including Uber Eats, Postmates, DoorDash, ChowNow, Caviar, Delivery.com, and popular POS systems like Brink, Dinerware, Positouch, Simphony, and Squirrel.
Hardware is an important piece of Ordermark’s approach, according to
Canter. Prior to onboarding, its restaurant customers are often stuck
juggling multiple tablets and laptops to field incoming delivery orders.
A multitude of printers and disparate checkout workflows exacerbates
the problem, particularly at peak times.
The other key to Ordermark’s solution is a dashboard from which
restaurant employees can manage multiple platforms (even for restaurants
that provide their own delivery drivers) and from which they can reach
out directly to a U.S.-based customer care team to change hours, update
menus, or even temporarily pause service. This dashboard also affords
them access to analytics tools that surface real-time locations and
metrics and run reports across all delivery services.
Ordermark’s success has been nothing short of meteoric, with over
3,000 restaurant brands signed on to date including Buffalo Wild Wings,
Little Caesars, Sonic, Qdoba, Johnny Rockets, Subway, Popeyes, Papa
John’s, Which Which, Moe’s, Togo’s, Pinkberry, Pieology, TGI Fridays,
Yogurtland, and Halal Guys. Deployments rose from 20 U.S. states in
September 2018 to over 40 today, and Ordermark expects to have customers
in all 50 states within months.
Ordermark competes to an extent with Chowly, which similarly
integrates third-party ordering platforms with POS systems, and
Checkmate, whose tech suite funnels orders directly into restaurants’
POS systems. But Foundry Group partner Chris Moody believes the food
delivery market’s current trajectory — from $17 billion in revenue this
year to more than $24 billion in 2023, according to Statista — promises
great things for Ordermark.
“Foundry Group has a long history of investing in companies that glue
together disparate systems over diverse platforms — and that’s exactly
what Ordermark is doing in the restaurant industry: connecting
third-party ordering solutions, point-of-sale systems, and other cool
innovations to help restaurants consolidate, grow, and understand their
delivery business,” said Moody. “We were initially introduced to
Ordermark via three of our partner funds: Techstars Ventures, Matchstick
Ventures, and TenOneTen Ventures. All three were incredibly excited
about what the Ordermark team is building and the tremendous progress
they’ve made since their series A investment. The more we got to know
Alex and the team, the more we realized what an incredible platform
they’re building. Their products work in part because Alex is a
fourth-generation restaurant owner and he and his team truly understand
the needs of the restaurant."
Source. Venture Beat, Paul Sawers, July 29, 2019
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Source. Venture Beat, Paul Sawers, July 29, 2019
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This post was brought to you by Woewoda Communications, your partner in the venture capital, private equity and startup markets; offering strategic communications, public relations & investor relation services to Canadian VCs, PEs, Angels, Endowments/Trusts, Family Offices, and Canadian startups involved in ICT, IoT, blockchain, life sciences, healthcare, agribusiness, clean energy, fintech, AI and robotics.
Are you a Canadian GP/LP/CI or a Canadian startup that needs to grow or scale? Give us a call! One of our representatives would love to explain how we vertically design, and then systematically layer each of our communication platforms to effectively reach niche target audiences for our clients. WC offers a unique synergistic approach to effectively communicate our client's message to their target audience.
Serving Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa and Halifax.
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