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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
🔦 Spotlight
Hello Los Angeles, and happy Friday!
Memorial Day Weekend is finally here, and it seems even PCH got the memo, just in time for those coastal drives to kick off summer, traffic jams included. Speaking of navigation, El Segundo based startup CX2 has charted its own impressive course this week, securing $31 million in a Series A round led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, and Pax Ventures, to boost its mission in electronic warfare.
Electronic warfare (EW), for those of us who aren't regulars at the Pentagon, involves the tactical use of electromagnetic energy to control the spectrum, essentially jamming or confusing enemy communications and radar systems. CX2 was founded by a diverse and experienced group: Nathan Mintz, who brings deep expertise in defense technology from previous ventures such as Epirus and Spartan; Mark Trefgarne, a software entrepreneur known for a successful acquisition by Meta; Lee Thompson, an expert RF engineer previously with SpaceX; and Porter Smith, whose practical insights stem from his background as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and subsequent experience as an investor.
The new funds will help CX2 scale its team and accelerate the development of advanced tools, including autonomous drones and specialized signals-intelligence systems. These innovations promise precision interference without collateral disruptions, addressing critical defense capability gaps identified by industry experts.
With tensions escalating globally, there's big demand for next-gen defense solutions, and CX2’s technology positions them as a major player in shaping future electronic battlespaces.
Dive deeper into the details and check out this week's roundup of LA’s venture deals and acquisitions below.
Here's to a weekend filled with sunshine, clear roads (fingers crossed), and tech that keeps pushing boundaries!
🤝 Venture Deals
LA Companies
- Axle Health, founded by former Uber execs, raised $10M in Gaa Series A round led by F-Prime Capital to expand its AI-powered logistics platform for home healthcare. The software streamlines scheduling, routing, and patient engagement, and is now used by major health systems and agencies across all 50 states. The company has seen 10x revenue growth over the past year. - learn more
- Promise, a generative AI studio based in Venice, California, has secured a strategic investment from Google's AI Futures Fund, alongside contributions from The North Road Company, and others. This funding will support Promise's integration of advanced AI technologies into its proprietary production platform, MUSE, and facilitate collaborations with Google's DeepMind researchers to push the boundaries of AI-driven storytelling. The studio plans to commence production on its first feature-length film this year, marking a significant step in its mission to blend human creativity with cutting-edge AI tools in filmmaking. - learn more
- Final Boss Sour, a Los Angeles-based snack brand blending gaming nostalgia with sour fruit treats, raised $4M in a Seed 2 round. The funds will go toward expanding distribution, product innovation, and creator partnerships. The company also launched a new tropical sampler box featuring real fruit flavors like mango, pineapple, and kiwi. - learn more
- VUZ, a UAE-based immersive media platform, raised $12M in a pre-Series C round led by the International Finance Corporation with participation from CrossWork.us, among others, to fuel global expansion and enhance its AI-powered streaming experiences. The funding brings its total raised to over $35M and will support growth across the U.S., Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. VUZ, now EBITDA positive, hosts 30,000+ hours of immersive content and has exclusive deals with leagues like LaLiga and Serie A. - learn more
LA Venture Funds
- B Capital co-led Data Sutram's $9M Series A funding round, supporting the company's expansion of its AI-driven fraud detection platform into sectors like cryptocurrency, gaming, and insurance. The investment will also aid in strengthening Data Sutram's AI capabilities and facilitating its international growth into markets such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. - learn more
- Upfront Ventures led Clair's $23.2M Series B funding round, reinforcing its commitment to the fintech startup it initially backed during the seed stage. Clair provides embedded earned wage access (EWA) solutions, allowing employees to access their earnings instantly through integrations with payroll and workforce management platforms like Gusto and TriNet. The new funding will support Clair's expansion across more than 29,000 business locations and enhance its partnerships with additional HR and payroll providers. - learn more
- Rebel Fund participated in Keep's recent C$108M funding round, supporting the Toronto-based fintech's mission to modernize small business banking in Canada. Keep offers an all-in-one financial platform tailored to Canadian small businesses, addressing challenges like outdated systems and limited access to credit. The funding will help Keep expand its services, which include business credit cards, expense tracking, and multi-currency accounts, to more entrepreneurs across the country. - learn more
- MarcyPen Capital Partners participated in SparkCharge's $30.5M funding round, supporting the expansion of its mobile, off-grid EV charging services across North America. This investment will help SparkCharge scale its Charging-as-a-Service model, enabling fleets to adopt electric vehicles without the need for permanent infrastructure. - learn more
- Matter Venture Partners participated in Biostate AI's $12M Series A funding round, supporting the Houston-based startup's mission to revolutionize molecular diagnostics through affordable RNA sequencing and generative AI. Biostate AI aims to build a comprehensive RNA sequencing dataset to train AI models capable of predicting disease progression and treatment responses, thereby advancing precision medicine. - learn more
- Prototype Capital participated in Sensmore's €6.5M funding round, supporting the German robotics startup's mission to retrofit heavy machinery with AI-driven automation. Sensmore's technology enables real-time automation of complex tasks in industries like construction and mining. The investment will help expand Sensmore's Physical AI platform, enhancing productivity and safety in industrial operations. - learn more
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Snap's 'Spotlight' Lures Short-Form Video Creators with Big Payouts
04:15 PM | November 23, 2020
Snapchat is paying out $1 million a day to top creators as competition for influencers intensifies.
It is the latest move in an arms race among a growing list of social media companies that depend on short-form, user-generated videos.
The new feature, called Spotlight, rolled out on Monday. Snap, which once distinguished itself as a friend-to-friend messaging app, is now letting users submit video clips of up to 60 seconds that can be viewed by anyone on the platform. It comes weeks after the platform opened up public profiles to everyone.
Snap says it will determine who gets paid, and how much, based on a proprietary formula that may include metrics such as views and engagement. Snap's content algorithms will influence how many people see Spotlight submissions. Those formulas in part consider how users' content has performed in the past.
As TikTok's future in the U.S. remains in limbo, competitors have sought to lure creators and their followers with shiny incentives. Shortly after TikTok launched its $200 million creator fund (which the company has said will grow to $1 billion within three years), Instagram rolled out Reels globally, and reportedly sought to woo creators from TikTok with gobs of money. Not to be outdone, Triller, another short-form social video competitor, has reportedly attempted to attract top talent with luxurious meals, cars and mansions.
Now it is Snap that is dangling money to try to tip the user-generated video scales in its direction.
Not that the company has been struggling. Since a banner Q3 earnings report, Snap's stock has soared nearly 60%.
Monday's announcement further illuminates a new contour in Snap's strategy, however: staking out a claim in the music-accompanied short-form user-generated video space. Spotlight will leverage Snap's recently inked music licensing deals, which have already been used to allow users to add songs to messages they send on Snapchat. The new feature also presents a strong use case for Snap's acquisition last week of Voisey, which allows users to easily create and upload songs of their own.
Spotlight also appears poised to bring new revenue streams to Snap. The nine-year-old company has never turned a profit. According to the new feature's terms of service, it "may contain advertisements," and the payouts made to top videos "may be funded either by Snap or from a portion of the proceeds we receive from advertisements distributed in Spotlight."
The feature is currently available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the U.S., "with more countries to come soon," according to a representative.
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Sam Blake
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake
https://twitter.com/hisamblake
samblake@dot.la
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