- Cartwheel, an on-demand delivery management platform for restaurants and retailers, announced recently that it raised $1 million in a seed round. These are the details.
Cartwheel — an on-demand delivery management platform for restaurants and retailers — announced recently that it has raised a $1 million seed round led by TenOneTen Ventures with participation from Act One Ventures and Portillo’s Hot Dogs along with angel investment from additional restaurateurs. And the funds will be used for product development, partnership integrations, and team expansion.
On-demand delivery is now a requirement in today’s market and many businesses struggle to decide between outsourcing — which is convenient but can be expensive. Building an in-house platform provides brands control over the customer experience, but it is more operationally involved.
And Cartwheel offers the best of both options, allowing brands to launch a self-delivery program alongside their third-party partners, saving on costs and strengthening brand loyalty. Cartwheel’s turnkey offering essentially includes an easy-to-use driver app, sophisticated dispatch tools for managers, and user-friendly customer interaction functionality.
Cartwheel is already being used by top chains such as Portillo’s to improve its delivery offerings. And Portillo’s offers a menu of unrivaled Chicago-style street food like Italian beef sandwiches and Chicago-style hot dogs from its restaurants across nine states.
Cartwheel is partnered with Olo Inc. (NYSE: OLO), a digital ordering and delivery platform with a network of more than 400 brand customers. And to date, Cartwheel has powered deliveries for top brands including P.F. Chang’s, Charleys Philly Steaks, Taco del Mar, and more.
KEY QUOTES:
“Cartwheel got its start a decade ago as one of the most successful delivery restaurants in LA. When we moved into the delivery outsourcing business in 2014, we realized we couldn’t find a powerful last-mile delivery management system with all the features we wanted, so we built it ourselves. This investment will allow Cartwheel to further expand our reach, offering seamless delivery solutions to businesses that are reimagining what their delivery offerings look like in a post-pandemic world.”
— Alex Vasilkin, co-founder and CEO, Cartwheel
“With more than 60 Portillo’s locations nationwide and the highest average unit sales volumes in the fast-casual industry, we have a lot of deliveries to manage. It’s important that our brand is well-represented. Cartwheel enables us to use our team members to deliver our highest-value orders, cross-training our team members so that they can become drivers for our own fleet. Our experience with Cartwheel has been so positive that we invested back in the company so they can further develop services with brands in mind.”
— Michael Osanloo, CEO of Portillo’s
“Digital ordering and delivery have become increasingly crucial to the long-term viability of restaurant brands and they will play an even more prominent role in the future of the industry based on ever-growing consumer demand. With each restaurant brand comes a unique set of needs and we are proud to work with Cartwheel to offer our shared customers a simplified solution to bolster their direct channels and drive success.”
— Noah Glass, Founder & CEO, Olo and member of the board of directors, Portillo’s
“The last mile delivery market opportunity is in the billions, and Cartwheel is well positioned to capitalize. Having built their solution from the ground up, with establishments in mind, Cartwheel knows its customer and their needs and will transform the delivery experience for businesses and specialty retailers nationwide.”
— Minnie Ingersoll, partner, TenOneTen Ventures
