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Kitchen United
Kitchen United Brings in $100M For New Locations
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Kitchen United is beefing up its service with a $100 million raise.
The company announced Monday that the Pasadena-based ghost kitchen company brought in the cash in a Series C funding round. The new funds bring Kitchen United’s overall financing to $175 million. New investors Kroger, Circle K, Simon Property Group, Phillips Edison, B. Riley Venture Capital, HAVI Group and Burger King owner Restaurant Brands International joined previous investors and former NFL star Peyton Manning to complete the round.
Kitchen United CEO Michael Montagano told Business Insider that the money will go towards increasing the company’s physical locations from 15 to 500 over the next five years. Previously, the company opened new locations through partnerships with investors Kroger and Simon Property Group.
Founded in 2017, Kitchen United is focused primarily on operating its 200 kitchens across California, New York, Illinois, and Texas. The company was an early entry in the booming ghost kitchen trend, which uses kitchens to prepare delivery-only meals. The pandemic boosted the business model’s popularity—and famed restaurateur Guy Fieri has stated that ghost kitchens are here to stay.
But the concept is changing, with many startups expanding beyond simply renting out locations. FooDoo is utilizing ghost kitchens to stock its microstores across Los Angeles. In 2019, Canter Deli’s Alex Canter launched NextBite, which partners restaurants with ghost kitchen brands to complete orders. Kitchen United, in particular, has repurposed mall food courts to allow shoppers to buy from multiple restaurants in one transaction.
Not all restaurant tech companies are thriving, with NextBite, for example, forced into downsizing in response to “changing markets.” Kitchen United’s sizable raise comes as some startup funding is drying up in the face of worsening economic conditions.
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
Looking for Bargains on Office Space? Prepare for Sticker Shock. Rents Are Higher Than Before COVID
07:26 AM | February 26, 2021
Nearly a year into the worst pandemic in a century, Los Angeles companies expecting to snap up office space on the cheap may be disappointed.
L.A. office rents have held steady or even gotten pricier since COVID, even as more space has become available as most employees continue to work from home.
"I honestly thought rents would have dropped by now," said Michael Soto, research director at the brokerage Savills Inc. "For a lot of tenants, they are still seeing a bit of sticker shock that prices haven't dropped yet."
Despite a 22% vacancy rate, the average asking L.A. office rent at the end of 2020 creeped up to $44.88 a square foot from $42.12 at the end of 2019, according to Savills. In West L.A., where most tech companies are located, rent inched up to $62.96 from $59.58 even as vacancy also increased to 21% from 14%.
"It's counterintuitive," said Soto. "Usually when availability goes up, rent goes down. But rents have been sticky."
Soto credits the steadiness in prices to landlords holding firm on pricing, anticipating that workers will return to the office in the second half of the year.
"We are in a wait-and-see approach to see who blinks first," Soto said.
Even though overall demand for office space in L.A. has fallen, it is still doing much better relative to other major cities, according to the VTS Office Demand Index (VODI), a real time tracker of private commercial real estate data. It found demand in L.A. was down only 15% in January compared to the same month in 2020. By comparison, demand plummeted 52% in San Francisco and 68% in New York.
One reason why is the Netflix effect. Through the pandemic, streaming services continued to aggressively expand their L.A. footprint, which helped drive up rent for the market as a whole.
"These are companies that are flush with capital," Soto said. "They have taken advantage of drop off in leasing activity to expand to get favorable terms."
Some large tech companies – such as Salesforce, Zillow, Twitter and Dropbox – have said remote work will be permanent. But they are still in the minority as most companies plan to return to the office, even if they will not require all their workers to be present all the time.
Just one in 10 companies expect all employees to return to their pre-pandemic work arrangements, according to a recent survey conducted by the National Association for Business Economics. A dot.LA survey of top L.A. VCs conducted in December found 28% do not expect employees to ever go back, but 44% expect employees to return during the second half of this year.
Jamie Montgomery, co-founder and managing partner of March Capital, said he never considered giving up his venture firm's Santa Monica office and that he's hopeful his staff can return in a few months.
"We have a relatively young team and they like the social interaction," Montgomery said. "I think we're in what I would call a creative industry where you kick around ideas and you come up with the best ideas. I mean, I'm not going to sit here at my desk and be a brilliant investor."
Montgomery says he was able to buck the trend of higher rents when he signed a new lease in December, lowering his rent to where it was five years ago. He was eager to get the deal done before prices increased.
"I thought if we waited too long we probably would miss that window," he said.
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Ben Bergman
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
https://twitter.com/thebenbergman
ben@dot.la
This LA Startup Wants to Make It Rain and Just Raised $25M to Do It
09:38 AM | May 09, 2025
🔦 Spotlight
Hello LA!
While most tech headlines are busy chasing AI chatbots and flying taxis, one startup in El Segundo is aiming a little higher. Literally.
Rainmaker just secured$25 million in Series A funding to expand its cloud-seeding drone technology. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Starship Ventures, 1517 Fund, Long Journey Ventures, Naval Ravikant, and others.
Their idea is simple but urgent. Instead of relying on old-school aircraft to spray rain-making particles across the sky, Rainmaker uses AI-powered drones that find and seed clouds with pinpoint accuracy. It is faster, more affordable, and could reshape how regions fight back against droughts.
California's ongoing water struggles have made it clear that simply "saving" water is not enough. Cities and entire economies need new tools to create it. Rainmaker plans to use the funding to grow its fleet, invest in atmospheric science, and expand commercial partnerships with utilities and governments searching for solutions.
Bigger picture, Rainmaker is part of a growing shift in LA's tech ecosystem. While software remains dominant, more investors and founders are quietly betting on "hard tech" that addresses real-world problems like water, energy, and infrastructure.
It is not just about apps anymore. It is about survival tech.
With the skies getting hotter and the reservoirs getting lower, the next great tech export out of LA might not be entertainment or social media. It could be rain.
Stay tuned…
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- SimpleClosure, a Santa Monica-based startup that automates the business shutdown process, has raised a $15M Series A funding round led by TTV Capital. The company, which launched publicly in late 2023, helps startups and businesses navigate legal, regulatory, and compliance hurdles when closing down, using AI to streamline paperwork and communications. The new funding will support SimpleClosure’s platform growth and product expansion, as rising economic pressures create heightened demand for efficient dissolution solutions. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Haya Therapeutics’ $65M Series A funding round. Haya Therapeutics, which is developing precision RNA-guided medicines for chronic and age-related diseases, will use the capital to advance its lead therapeutic programs targeting heart failure and fibrosis. The company plans to expand its pipeline, invest in its discovery platform, and grow its team to accelerate clinical development. - learn more
- Griffin Gaming Partners led a $7M funding round for Fuse Games, a gaming studio focused on developing new original IP. Fuse Games, founded by industry veterans with experience at major gaming companies, plans to use the funds to accelerate production of its first title and expand its team as it builds ambitious new gaming experiences. - learn more
- Shamrock Capital has made a strategic growth investment in Neocol, a leading consulting platform that specializes in sales and AI-driven software solutions for subscription businesses. Neocol, which helps companies optimize revenue operations and digital transformations, plans to use the investment to accelerate its growth, expand its services, and further strengthen its leadership position in the Salesforce ecosystem. - learn more
- Trust Fund participated in a $7.2M seed funding round for Agree.com, an all-in-one platform that combines e-signature and integrated payments, aiming to streamline and speed up service agreements. The company plans to use the new capital to grow its engineering team, expand integrations, and enhance payment capabilities to help service providers close deals faster. - learn more
- Hyperlink Ventures participated in Orca AI’s $72.5M funding round. Orca AI, headquartered in London, develops AI-based navigation and collision-avoidance solutions to improve safety and efficiency for commercial shipping fleets. The funding will help Orca AI scale its autonomous shipping technologies, expand its team, and support global growth efforts. - learn more
LA Exits
- StoryFire, a social storytelling and video platform with over 2.5M users, has been acquired by Flashy Finance to launch a new platform called Flashy Social. The move aims to merge content creation with blockchain-powered financial tools, allowing creators to monetize through token incentives, streaming features, and community engagement. This acquisition supports Flashy Finance’s broader vision of building a cultural, creator-led financial ecosystem. - learn more
- Jaanuu, Inc., a Los Angeles-based medical apparel brand known for its stylish and functional scrubs, has been acquired in an asset sale by VentureOn Management, LLC. The acquisition includes substantially all of Jaanuu's assets, encompassing its intellectual property, inventory, and customer relationships. VentureOn Management plans to continue Jaanuu's operations, focusing on delivering high-quality medical apparel to healthcare professionals. - learn more
- Skechers has agreed to be acquired by 3G Capital in a deal valued at approximately $9.4 billion. Shareholders will receive either $63 per share in cash or $57 plus an equity unit in a new private parent company. Following the acquisition, Skechers will become privately held, maintain its Manhattan Beach headquarters, and continue to be led by its current management team. - learn more
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