ZeroCater may have made its name by bringing restaurant food to offices for lunch (or other meals), but it has now raised a new round of funding for the next benefit that it has. he hopes to bring business: snacks.
While ZeroCater continues to expand from town to town with new restaurants while he's trying to expand beyond the simple lunch at startups in the Bay Area, he's now looking to compete with Aramark to ensure that he gains control of refrigerators and offices in offices as his next big area of business. And while this may seem like an advantage, as competition for talent continues to heat no matter the city, these benefits are becoming more and more of a challenge for keeping the best. To do this, the company announced today that it has raised a new $ 12 million round of financing led by Cleveland Avenue, with the participation of Justin Kan, Romulus Capital and Struck Capital.
"You have more companies trying to fight for the same talent," said co-founder Arram Sabeti. "When you look at the cost of labor and the hiring of great talent, all this is a rounding error.When you look at lunch, for example, the economic argument is pretty obvious."
As such, entering this market will be tricky, hence the new funding. ZeroCater must increasingly ingest a lot of new data and form these partnerships, which requires talent. The company already has over 1,000 SKUs (or options, really) for the products that it can store as a snack. ZeroCater seeks to create a series of tools for managers to give employees a level of granularity that they could be used to when it comes to buying office equipment, giving them the ability to give specific comments on the type of drinks that they want their fridge. These options can even vary from one floor to another, and the goal is to keep track of all of this in a consistent manner.
The theory of owning snacks is quite similar to its goal with restaurants: to understand what employees really want, and to help these companies get the right products in the building based on employee feedback. ZeroCater wants to help employers understand what they buy and why they buy it. The goal in the end is to keep their employees happy.
ZeroCater started working with restaurants that were trying to expand or even start businesses. The company offers restaurants the opportunity to do some kind of test for their meals and their business with companies that have access to good food while allowing these restaurants to test before introducing new dishes. or even open a real restaurant. The ultimate goal is to create a feedback loop where employees can help inform companies about what is good and what is not.
"[Managers] really does not think that employees can participate [in the picking process]," said Sabeti. "They want a mechanism for employees to give their opinion and tell the vendor what they want to receive." The most comments [vendors] is to send someone to sit down. With a facility manager once a quarter, with our product we have a dashboard where employees can see what's going to happen, vote on different items, and then we can collect those comments. "
Snacks can, indeed, serve as an interesting differentiation in an increasingly complex market. Square earlier this month has acquired the Zesty office control start-up as it seeks to continue to develop its Caviar service. While this is an example, it may indeed be a kind of harbinger of increased competition when it comes to office catering – and an example of having to go beyond restaurants in order to stay competitive.