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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
ClassPass Founder Payal Kadakia on How Her Heritage Inspired Her Entrepreneurship
05:00 AM | February 17, 2022
Image courtesy of Payal Kadakia
On this episode of Behind Her Empire, entrepreneur Payal Kadakia talks about how her Indian heritage helped her become the entrepreneur she is today.
Kadakia is the founder of ClassPass, a fitness and wellness membership app that was acquired by MindBody in October. Prior to its acquisition, ClassPass was valued at over $1 billion, with members logging more than 100 million hours of workouts across 30,000 partner studios.
Kadakia's parents immigrated to the U.S. in the 70s, taking a huge risk to follow their dreams and opportunities.
"My parents never wanted me to have to go through any type of struggle, any type of hardship that they went through. So, they trained me in a way to be a bit more risk averse. And what that meant was making sure I had stability, good career, good education, good foundation," said Kadakia.
Kadakia had a passion for Indian dance that kept her connected to her culture. Where she grew up, there weren't many people that looked like her outside of her dance classes. For her it was a transformative experience.
"While I struggled to fit in, I think I also found beauty in who I was through being around this other group of people who did look like me. And where all of us could be together on Saturday and Sunday mornings," said Kadakia.
After graduating college and living in New York City, Kadakia decided to take her own calculated risk when she started ClassPass. Her idea was to create a show from a 100-person dance company she’d founded shortly after finishing college, but she had no idea if the idea would work.
Kadakia rented out the space, but had no idea if people would show up. On opening night, the show was sold out. Lines of people sat along the side of the walls since there weren't enough seats.
"When everyone gave us a standing ovation, at the end of that show, I felt very confident and I knew that I should really be going towards these feelings that my heart is telling me. That these things that I feel are really what my gift is," said Kadakia.
That success inspired her to take ClassPass beyond dance. It’s since become known as a fitness and wellness platform with classes and gyms around the world.
Kadakia said her experience has taught her to think of hobbies as something more than side projects.
"That's the crux of why I started ClassPass,” she said. “I just felt that we shouldn't ever give up on these things. And people call them hobbies, or whatever they might be, but they feed our soul, it's not about our age at all."
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Audience Engagement Fellow Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
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Yasmin Nouri
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
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Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
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