Tovala

Last updated
Tovala
Founded2015;9 years ago (2015)
Headquarters Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Area servedUnited States
Founder(s)
  • David Rabie
  • Bryan Wilcox
Industry Meal kit
Employees375 (2024) [1]
URL www.tovala.com

Tovala is a meal-kit and oven company based in Chicago, Illinois. It sells a series of smart ovens that combine baking, broiling, air frying, and steam cooking and which can be controlled by an app.

Contents

History

Tovala was co-founded in 2015 by CEO David Rabie and CTO Bryan Wilcox. It won a venture challenge at the University of Chicago. [2] Initially named Maestro and nicknamed the "Keurig for food," it launched with a Kickstarter in January 2016 that raised $256,000. [3] That year, it was also accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator program. [4] [1] [5]

Tovala launched to the general public in 2017. It also raised a $9.2 million Series A round that year, led by Origin Ventures, and acquired the Chicago-based food-delivery service Radish. [6] [7] [8] [9] In 2020, the company raised a $20 million Series B round of capital, led by Finistere Ventures and including Comcast Ventures, OurCrowd, Rich Products Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, and the University of Chicago. [10] [11] It added a $30 million Series C round in 2021, led by Left Lane Capital. [12] [13] As of 2024, it has raised a total of $68.6 million and employs about 375 people. [1]

The company has released several generations of its countertop smart ovens, most recently the Tovala Smart Oven and the Tovala Smart Oven Pro, which includes steam cooking. [14] [15] They have ranged in price from $300 to $400, which substantial discounts for customers who also sign up for the company's meal-kit service. [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Y Combinator</span> American startup accelerator

Y Combinator Management, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 4,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expanded to San Francisco in 2019, and was entirely online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies started via Y Combinator include Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Reddit, Stripe, and Twitch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Muse (website)</span> Online career platform

The Muse is a New York City-based online career platform founded in 2011 by Kathryn Minshew, Alexandra Cavoulacos, and Melissa McCreery.

Grubhub Inc. is an American online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform based in Chicago, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strikingly</span>

Strikingly is a "mobile-first" website builder. Its aim is to allow a user with little or no development experience, to create mobile optimized websites. In addition to smartphones and tablets, websites created with Strikingly are "enhanced for viewing across all devices", including desktops.

SmartAsset is a financial technology company, founded in July 2012 by Michael Carvin and Phillip Camilleri and headquartered in New York, New York. The company publishes articles, guides, reviews, calculators and tools to help people make decisions about personal finance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Webflow</span> American software company

Webflow, Inc. is an American company, based in San Francisco, that provides software as a service for website building and hosting. Their online visual editor platform allows users to design, build, and launch websites similar to Metaconex or Wix. According to W3Techs, Webflow is used by 0.6% of the top 10 million websites.

Goldbelly is an online marketplace for food products. Customers can order products from restaurants, bakeries, delis, etc. and have them shipped across the United States. The ordered food sometimes requires preparation and cooking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instacart</span> Internet-based grocery delivery service

Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, is an American delivery company based in San Francisco that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada accessible via a website and mobile app. It allows customers to order groceries from participating retailers with the shopping being done by a personal shopper. The company also provides alcohol delivery in states and provinces where it is allowed. It has partnerships with 1,400 retail banners comprising 80,000 stores. In 2022, it fulfilled 262.6 million orders with a total transaction value of $28.8 billion and an average transaction value of $110.

OrderAhead was a mobile ordering and payments company that allowing users to order food for pickup from local restaurants.

DoorDash, Inc. is a San Francisco–based company that operates an online food ordering and food delivery platform. It trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% market share, DoorDash is the largest food delivery company in the United States. It also has a 60% market share in the convenience delivery category. As of December 31, 2020, the platform was used by 450,000 merchants, 20,000,000 consumers, and one million delivery couriers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munchery</span> Online food ordering and meal delivery service

Munchery Inc. was an online food ordering and meal delivery service that served parts of San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City. The company shut down abruptly on January 21, 2019. It was valued at $300 million. The website currently relaunched as a recipes-only website.

Deliveroo is a British online food delivery company founded by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski in 2013 in London, England. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. It formerly operated in Germany, Taiwan, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia. Its subsidiary operation, Deliveroo Editions operates dark kitchens for the preparation of delivery-only meals.

June is a home automation company based in San Francisco. Its first product was the June Intelligent Oven, a Wi-Fi-enabled, app-connected countertop convection oven that employs machine learning and computer vision technologies to identify and cook food.

Sunbasket is a subscription meal delivery service that ships members fresh, sometimes organic, and sustainable ingredients and recipes every week, allowing them to cook their own meals. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, and operates two regional distribution centers in Morgan Hill, CA and Westampton, New Jersey. It is part of the meal kit industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flirtey</span> American UAV manufacturer

Flirtey was a Reno, Nevada-based drone delivery company. The company completed the first Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved drone delivery in the United States in 2015, the first FAA-approved urban delivery in March 2016 and the first FAA-approved commercial drone delivery to a customer home in July 2016. Flirtey is also developing air traffic control computer software for drones in a collaboration with NASA. One of the company's drones is in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

ChowNow is an online food ordering platform that connects customers with local restaurants. Christopher Webb and Eric Jaffe, American entrepreneurs, founded the company in 2011 with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

Chris Gladwin is an American inventor, computer engineer and technology entrepreneur, who has founded or co-founded a series of tech-related companies including MusicNow, Cleversafe and Ocient.

Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 580 Indian cities, as of July 2023. Besides food delivery, the platform also provides on-demand grocery deliveries under the name Instamart, and a same-day package delivery service called Swiggy Genie.

Freshly was a New York City-based convenience food delivery company that delivered throughout the contiguous United States. It was acquired by Nestlé in October 2020 and was shut down in January 2023.

ezCater is a Boston-based company that connects businesses with restaurants and caterers through an online marketplace. It was co-founded by Stefania Mallett, CEO, and Briscoe Rodgers, Chief Strategy Officer, in 2007.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Tovala: A smart-oven-paired subscription meal service". Y Combinator. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  2. ↑ McLean, Tessa (29 May 2015). "Maestro, the Keurig for food, wins top prize at New Venture Challenge | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  3. ↑ Rekdal, Andreas (23 December 2016). "Dishing up dinner and fixing democracy: These were our favorite launches in 2016 | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  4. ↑ Rekdal, Andreas (18 January 2016). "Maestro, 'the Keurig for food,' rebrands as Tovala | Built In Chicago". Built in Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  5. ↑ Rekdal, Andreas (7 March 2017). "The "Keurig for food" joins YC class of 2016 | Built In Chicago". Built in Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  6. ↑ Mohan, Pavithra (18 December 2018). "Smart oven startup Tovala just got a cash infusion of $9.2 million". Fast Company. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  7. ↑ Rekdal, Andreas (18 December 2017). "Tovala just served up a $9.2M Series A | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  8. ↑ "Tovala Raises $9.2M Series A Round to Fund Expansion". The Spoon. 18 December 2017. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  9. ↑ Rekdal, Andreas (14 November 2017). "Tovala acquires Radish, bolstering food delivery credentials". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  10. ↑ "This 'smart oven' company raised $20 million to help people cook at home". Fast Company. 2 June 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  11. ↑ Tepper, Nona (2 June 2020). "Tovala Raises $20M to Install Its Smart Oven in More Home Kitchens | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  12. ↑ Glover, Ellen (5 February 2021). "Tovala Raises Another $30M to Grow Its Meal Delivery, Food Tech Business | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  13. ↑ Rabie, David (13 July 2021). "Even with Y Combinator pedigree we initially struggled with fundraising. That was a blessing in disguise". Fast Company. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  14. ↑ "Tovala - Smart Oven. Fresh Meal Delivery Service. 1 Minute of Prep". tovala.com. 5 September 2022. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  15. ↑ Hines, Michael (13 November 2018). "Tovala just launched a redesigned version of its smart oven | Built In Chicago". Built In Chicago. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  16. ↑ "Tovala - Smart Oven. Fresh Meal Delivery Service. 1 Minute of Prep". tovala.com. 5 September 2022. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.