(Choco doesn’t take a cut itself and says it’s doing this to help the restaurants continue staying in business even when they cannot operate their physical venues and kitchens.)Ĭhoco earlier this month also raised some money: $30.2 million at a $250 million valuation.įounders have said that’s a challenge right now to raise money, not just because of business slowing down. In its case, it’s teaming up with its restaurant customers to resell vegetables, meat and other ingredients. Now we are helping communities thrive.”Ĭurrently its Cheetah For Me service is live in the Bay Area.Ĭheetah is not the only startup that caters to the restaurant trade that is now opening up a new front offering direct-to-consumer sales.Ĭhoco in New York, which helps restaurants source their supplies online to save cooks and buyers time shopping in person, also started a new service targeting consumers. Our purpose has always been to help independent restaurants thrive. Now, we can provide even more people with the food and supplies they need in a safe and cost-effective way, throughout this crisis and beyond. “The positive feedback from the community has been overwhelming,” said Na’ama Moran, CEO at Cheetah who cofounded the company with Christopher Elliott, Alon Har-Tal and Vincent Matranga, in a statement.“This funding allows Cheetah to build on our strong foundation and expand essential services directly to the consumer. So it’s now set up a new service called Cheetah For Me, where it offers bakery items to beverages, dairy, meat, poultry, seafood, fresh produce, condiments, snacks and cleaning supplies to individuals to buy, and distributes those orders via a selection of pick-up points.Īt a time when people are unable to get delivery slots with Amazon or are avoiding physical grocery stores, Cheetah’s offering becomes another choice alongside Instacart and other food delivery services. Its wholesale delivery business for restaurants - which had some 3,000 customers before COVID-19, has largely (but not completely) dried up. On the other, companies that are hard pressed to fit any current need are feeling the pinch.Ĭheetah is an example of how a company in the latter category has used its resources and pivoted to becoming a business in the former. On one hand, some companies are seeing a huge boost to their business, when their existing business model perfectly addresses a current need. PitchBook puts its valuation at its last round at $180 million we’ve asked for the latest figure and will update as and when we hear more.Ĭheetah’s pivot comes at a key moment for the company and points to how there seem to be, generally speaking, two very different narratives underpinning the world of startups at the moment. The funding brings the total raised by Cheetah to $66 million, the company said. Today, the San Francisco startup is announcing that it has closed a Series B of $36 million led by Eclipse Ventures, with ICONIQ Capital, Hanaco Ventures, and Floodgate Fund also participating. A lot of restaurants have shuttered in the wake of stay-at-home guidance and government orders for non-essential businesses to close down, so a startup called Cheetah that provided a wholesale delivery service for them pivoted to selling to consumers, and now it’s raised a round of funding, both to expand its business and to help it stay the course through the novel coronavirus pandemic.
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