Goldbelly's mission is to deliver local restaurants' food nationwide, but this past year founder & CEO Joe Ariel said the company's "trajectory changed" in the wake of COVID-19.
Many small restaurants faced shutdowns and layoffs directly attributed to the lockdowns and social distancing requirements. Even with a rebound on the way as the mass vaccination effort rolls out, Ariel believes his platform — which curates and delivers high-end food across the country — will remain a model for eateries going forward.
"We've created an omni-channel future for local restaurants to be able to enter an e-commerce economy shipping their food nationwide," Joe Ariel told Yahoo Finance.
He credited the online marketplace for helping to keep "a lot of businesses afloat, and even some growing" with a spike in Goldbelly sales.
In the past year, the New York-based company saw a 300 percent spike in growth compared to a year ago, and added over one million customers with 850 restaurant partners on the platform, spanning all 50 states. Ariel is confident that growth trajectory is here to say, despite restaurants now accepting more customers, and air travel beginning to rebound.
Customers have "fallen in love with a new experience of getting food in a box that travels across the country for them," the CEO explained. "We've created a new category, which is food experiences that you love the most, where geography all of a sudden doesn't matter."
There's a large potential market for Goldbelly to capture the attention and stomachs of America, with more than 300,000 independently-operated restaurants in the U.S. It bodes well for the company, as there certainly is appetite for delivery, even as lockdowns ease.
Goldbelly's ambitions are also international, with Ariel hinting at a broader expansion abroad. On Thursday, the company announced its first international launch with Argentinian Chef Francis Mallmann to deliver at-home 'Argentinian Meal Experiences' across the nation.
Goldbelly recently announced a $100 million dollar Series C investment, led by growth equity firm Spectrum Equity, with participation from existing investor Intel Capital. The money will be used to scale its platform's technology, operations and accelerate the onboard of new chef and restaurant partners. It also hopes to launch new content initiatives like virtual cook-along classes.
"Every town has a hometown favorite food that you love, a food maker that the town takes pride in," Ariel told Yahoo Finance. "We want to connect all those dots and really empower people to connect with the people, the places, the foods and the memories that are meaningful to them."
Brooke DiPalma is a producer and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com. Check out her latest:
