 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online platform for restaurant pick-up and delivery |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder | Christopher Webb and Eric Jaffe |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Key people | Christopher Webb (CEO), Eric Jaffe (COO). |
| Website | get |
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.
The company ChowNow was founded in 2011 by Christopher Webb, a former employee of RBC Bank and Lehman Brothers; and Eric Jaffe, a former commercial real estate investor. The platform was launched in March 2012.
In January 2013, ChowNow raised over 4 million U.S. dollars, including funding from accelerator Launchpad LA. [1] [2] The same year, ChowNow, initially part of the incubator Launchpad LA, closed a seed round of $1 million from GRP Partners, James Bailey and angel investors. For its expansion and product improvement, it further raised 10 million US dollars in venture funding in a round led by Upfront Ventures. [3] In October 2017, ChowNow raised $20 million U.S. dollars in a Series B round led by Catalyst Investors, bringing ChowNow's total funding to 40 million U.S. dollars. [4] ChowNow's other notable investors include GRP Partners, Canyon Creek Capital, Clark Landry, Daher Capital, Double M Partners, Karlin Ventures, Launchpad LA, Tiller Partners, Upfront Ventures, Velos Partners. [5]
In June 2016, ChowNow partnered with Uber and Postmates to enhance its services with an order delivery feature called Flex Delivery service. [6] [7] [8] In August of the same year, ChowNow introduced a feature that allows potential diners to place orders directly from Google search results including thousands of restaurants across U.S. and Canada. [9] [10] In October 2016, ChowNow teamed up with Squarespace, a SaaS content management system and website builder platform, to enable restaurants with ChowNow's entire suite of online ordering tools. [11] [12] In May 2018, ChowNow released a feature that allows customers to place orders via a restaurant's Instagram profile. [13]
In March 2024, it was announced ChowNow had acquired the Victoria, Canada headquartered point-of-sale food ordering platform, Cuboh for an undisclosed amount. [14]
ChowNow's online ordering technology enables independent restaurants to take orders via their own branded channels. [9] [15] The company was launched in March 2012 at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago [16] and currently partners with thousands of restaurants in 50 states in U.S.
In addition to operating a consumer-facing platform, ChowNow allows restaurants to individually customize and brand their ordering apps. Restaurants can use ChowNow's online ordering technology to take orders directly through their Facebook page and Instagram profile. [17]
ChowNow operates on a SaaS model where restaurants subscribe on a monthly basis. The company does not prepare or deliver food. As the restaurant receives the order on its website, mobile app, Facebook, or Google page, ChowNow processes the order and communicates back to the diner for pickup or delivery. Last, ChowNow collects information from diners' orders and provides this information to the restaurants for remarketing. The user places an order from an online menu displayed on ChowNow's interface. Upon receiving confirmation of a diner's order through the integrated Apple Pay, Yelp or Google Wallet, [18] [19] the system forwards it to the selected restaurant. As it receives the order on its Facebook page website, or Instagram, this restaurant processes it and communicates back to the diner for delivery. Last, ChowNow collects information from diners' orders for its data analytics. [20]
Olo is a New York City-based B2B SaaS company that develops digital ordering and delivery programs for restaurants. The company’s platform allows customers to place restaurant orders from multiple origination points – from a brand’s own website or app, third party marketplaces, social media platforms, smart speakers, and home assistants. It also provides restaurants with order analytics and other services.
delivery.com LLC is an American online platform and suite of mobile apps that enables users to order from local restaurants and stores for on-demand delivery. The company currently has more than one million users and an online marketplace of more than 12,000 restaurants, wine and liquor stores, grocery stores, and laundry/dry cleaning providers.
Grubhub Inc. is an American online and mobile prepared food ordering and delivery platform based in Chicago, Illinois.
Movile is a local Brazilian firm headquartered in Campinas, Brazil. Movile operates in the segments of food ordering and delivery, ticketing, and logistics. It has had mixed success till now with the bet on food delivery maturing (iFood) while other bets still at nascent stage or under performing.
Gagan Biyani is an American of Indian descent serial entrepreneur, marketer, and journalist. He was a co-founder of Udemy, an online education company, and was co-founder and CEO of Sprig, a food delivery company.
Foodpanda is an online food and grocery delivery platform owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero. Foodpanda operates as the lead brand for Delivery Hero in Asia, with its headquarters in Singapore. It is currently the largest food and grocery delivery platform in Asia, outside of China, operating in 11 markets across Asia.
Postmates is a food delivery service, founded in 2011, and acquired by Uber in 2020. It offers local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Grab Holdings Inc. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered in One-North, Singapore. It is the developer of a super-app for ride-hailing, food delivery, and digital payment services on mobile devices that operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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.
Food delivery is a courier service in which a restaurant, store, or independent food-delivery company delivers food to a customer. An order is typically made either by telephone, through the supplier's website or mobile app, or through a third party food ordering service. The delivered items can include entrees, sides, drinks, desserts, or grocery items and are typically delivered in boxes or bags. The delivery person will normally drive a car, but in bigger cities where homes and restaurants are closer together, they may use bikes or motorized scooters.
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 ghost kitchens—kitchens not on restaurant sites—for the preparation of delivery-only meals.
Uber Eats is an online food ordering and delivery platform launched by the company Uber in 2014. The meals are delivered by couriers using various methods, including cars, scooters, bikes, or on foot. It is operational in over 6,000 cities in 45 countries as of 2021.
Tapingo was a mobile commerce application that offers advance ordering for pickup and food delivery services for college campuses. This functionality was merged into GrubHub mobile application after the acquisition.
Drizly was an online ordering and delivery platform that facilitates the delivery of alcohol from local retailers via its mobile app or website. As of December 31, 2020, the company had approximately 4,000 retail partners.
Careem is a Dubai-based super app with operations in over 70 cities, covering 10 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia regions. The company, which was valued at over US$2 billion in 2018, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber after being acquired for $3.1 billion in January 2020. Careem expanded into the food delivery business with Careem Now in November 2018, which evolved into Careem Food as well as the rapid grocery delivery service Careem Quik in 2020, and launched a digital payment platform, Careem Pay in April 2022. In April 2023, Careem's Super App business was spun out into a new legal entity, which e& acquired a 50.03% stake in, while Uber maintains full ownership of Careem's ride-hailing business. The Super App currently offers 20 digital services in the UAE including ride-hailing, food, grocery, micromobility, DineOut, and a subscription-based service - Careem Plus, amongst others
Slice is an online food ordering platform for independent pizzerias. It allows pizzeria owners to offer their products to their customers using a mobile-optimized website and their customers can place orders through the Slice app and social media channels. The company claims their platform is used by 9,000 pizzerias in 2,500 towns and cities in the US. It also claims to have processed more than $100 million worth of deliveries in 2017 and to have filled a total of over 12 million orders since 2010.
Swiggy is an Indian online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is headquartered in Bangalore and operates in more than 500 Indian cities as of September 2021. 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.
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.
Online food ordering services | |
|---|---|
| Meal delivery | |
| Meal kits | |
| Online grocery delivery | |
| Reservations | |
| Defunct | |
| Software | |
