After recently rebranding and raising $20 million, “distributed restaurant” platform All Day Kitchens raised $65 million in a Series C round bringing its total fundraising to $102.5 million. The San Francisco-based company said the new cash is being used for R&D, hiring and new market expansion.
All Day Kitchens offers restaurants a network of closely located satellite kitchens to reach takeout and delivery customers with minimal upfront investment. Founded in 2018 by Uber vets Ken Chong and Matt Sawchuck, the company was previously known as Virtual Kitchen Co., but rebranded as All Day Kitchens in May of 2021. The company positions its business as an alternative to the “traditional warehouse ghost kitchen model.”
The latest investment round was led by Lightspeed with participation from GIC, with Alex Taussig joining the board as Director and Jeremy Kranz as Board Observer. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Base10 also participated in the round, and new investors include real estate firm, Tishman Speyer, Lime CEO, Wayne Ting, and Forward co-founders, Adrian Aoun and Ilya Abyzov.
All Day Kitchens has doubled the number of satellite kitchens in its network this year and plans to accelerate opening new locations. With more than 15 locations operating throughout the Bay Area and Chicago, the number of restaurant partners on the platform has grown four fold in the last 12 months.
All Day Kitchens has partnered with local brands such as Honey Butter Fried Chicken, Mott St, HaiSous, 90 Miles Cafe, Cheesie’s, China Live, Dosa, and Mac ‘n Cue by International Smoke from Michael Mina and Ayesha Curry.
“COVID has been challenging for businesses, especially in the restaurant industry. We’ve seen increasing urgency from restaurants to expand digitally, for pick up and delivery, using All Day Kitchens. We’re scaling rapidly in new markets to help more great brands thrive” said All Day Kitchens CEO and co-founder Ken Chong.
“After six months on All Day Kitchens, it’s clear this concept is the future of the industry,” said Darnell Johnson, owner of Chicago’s Home of Chicken & Waffles. “The partnership has been an unbelievable way to expand our brand reach and take us to another financial level. The volume of guests coming in who discovered us through an All Day Kitchens location keeps growing.”
“All Day deeply understands the pains that restaurants face scaling their businesses in a delivery-first world. They have invented the most elegant solution to this wide-spread problem and are well on their way to becoming the leader in infrastructure for food delivery” said Alex Taussig, partner at Lightspeed. “We couldn’t be more delighted to lead their round and help support restaurants around the country.”
With the new round of funding, All Day Kitchens is hiring rapidly for the HQ team, and opening several new markets across the US. Their next market launches will be in Texas and Southern California.
