Photo: ezCater
ezCater, a Boston-based online catering marketplace, announced it has raised $150 million in Series D-1 funding co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and GIC. With this funding round, ezCater is going to expand globally and widen its lead as the number one catering marketplace and software platform for restaurant operators.
Light Street Capital, existing investors Wellington Management Company LLP, ICONIQ Capital, Insight Partners, Quadrille Capital, and others. Including this round, ezCater has raised $320 million.
“We’re the long-time market leaders and continue to have huge global ambitions,” said ezCater’s co-founder and CEO Stefania Mallett. “This funding expands our ability to help our catering partners grow in a way that no one else can.”
In the U.S. alone, catering is a business valued at more than $60 billion and it is growing 50% faster than the overall restaurant industry according to Technomic. As restaurants require different menus, operations, and technologies for managing their catering businesses, ezCater’s integrated catering marketplace was built to help restaurant of all sizes get more incremental catering orders and manage their entire catering operations.
“Most people don’t realize that catering is much deeper than the traditional market definition,” added Brad Twohig — partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “ezCater is having a huge impact on the industry by moving catering online and driving substantial profitability for their partners—this is a mission we’re excited to accelerate.”
Catering is also an intense business as orders for business meetings and other events often have high-stakes and are tightly scheduled. So customers cannot entrust their orders to any party that does not have sophisticated technology, broad selections, and concierge-class customer service. Businesspeople from 97% of the Fortune 500 depend on ezCater’s online ordering platform and customer service.
Currently, there are more than 60,000 restaurants and caterers available from local independent restaurants and national chains like Jersey Mike’s Subs, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, and Schlotzsky’s that are partnered with ezCater.
“ezCater keeps evolving to meet the needs of the catering industry,” explained Jennifer Sanders — Senior National Catering Manager at Schlotzsky’s. “The number of new orders they send us keeps growing, and so does the value in our partnership.”
Over the last 8 years, ezCater has expanded rapidly. Last year, ezCater acquired a Paris-based online catering platform called GoCater. And earlier this year, ezCater bought enterprise restaurant software, training, and insights company MonkeySoft Solutions. With this funding round, the company will continue expanding globally.
