As far as the food delivery service game is concerned, big names like Delivery Dudes and Grubhub have already secured themselves as the industry leaders. They bring restaurant food right to consumers doorsteps and deliver from hundreds of different eateries. Now a new food delivery service is looking to serve up the competition. The new startup, OrderUp, provides essentially the same service as its competitors but with one kicker. It has become a success while avoiding large urban areas.
Based in Baltimore, the delivery service is already in 35 markets with the majority of them being smaller towns and suburbs. On Tuesday, August 19, the company announced the $7 million it received in funding was largely thanks to Steve Cases’s Revolution Ventures and Tim O’Shaughnessy. In total the company has raised $8.25 million in funding to date.
OrderUp plans on using investor funds to expand operations further than the markets that they currently serve. Chris Jeffery, co-founder and CEO of OrderUp, explained, the company sees at least 500 new markets in the U.S. that OrderUp needs to take advantage of. Tige Savage, managing partner at Revolution Ventures and newly appointed OrderUp board member, explained to TechCrunch,
“Consumers love the convenience of ordering online. Yet, outside the major metropolitan markets, it’s shockingly difficult to find online food delivery options. OrderUp allows restaurants in small towns nationwide to cost-effectively join the digital age through an innovative ordering and delivery model. Restaurants love it and consumers do too.”
The company claims that it already fulfills 10,000 orders a week but believes that this is just the beginning for the food deliverer. OrderUp already has 55 full time employees and hundreds of delivery drivers who work under contracts. But as Jeffery explained, at this point deliveries make up the smallest percentage of OrderUp’s profit. He elaborated,
“Deliveries made by OrderUp driver partners are a small percentage of our orders, but by far the fastest growing segment of our business. The other transactions are deliveries fulfilled by the restaurant’s themselves that have a fleet of drivers. OrderUp’s business model is flexible so restaurants that want to use our technology and/or OrderUp driver partners can, some only want a piece of the solution. We work with restaurants that have their own delivery operation and want help reaching more consumers, restaurants that currently have their own delivery operation, but want to offload it completely or restaurants that have never delivered before.”
Despite the newly found success however, OrderUp still has its work cut out for it. The food delivering game is fierce. Grubhub just merged with Seamless, and the European based Delivery Hero recently acquired Pizza.de. It now has a $1 billion evaluation. Still, it seems that OrderUp has something that the people want. So take it easy tonight, let OrderUp do the driving.
Featured image via facebook/OrderUpHQ
