- Ghost kitchen startup Kbox Global has raised GBP12 million ($15 million) in a fresh funding round from Balderton Capital.
- The London-based company raised a seed round earlier this year but has opted to raise further funds amid a continuing boom in growth for food delivery and restaurants.
- “There’s a movement towards people understanding that you can get great food at home and we as a company have benefited from that,” Salima Vellani, Kbox founder and CEO, told Business Insider in an interview. “Sales went up 300-500% during lockdown, you can survive and excel if you know how to deliver food in the right way.”
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The popularity of food delivery apps like Uber Eats and Deliveroo has led to a surge in investment in startups providing complementary services, be it rentable kitchen space or virtual restaurant brands.
The global food delivery market is estimated to be worth $365 billion by 2030, with delivery unicorns like Deliveroo already valued at over $2 billion. Similarly, the market for ghost kitchens (kitchens which exist predominantly for food delivery) could be worth $1 trillion by 2030 according to Euromonitor.
London-based startup Kbox Global has raised its second funding round of the year, a GBP12 million ($15 million) deal with VC investor Balderton Capital amid a claimed boom in growth.
“There’s a movement towards people understanding that you can get great food at home and we as a company have benefited from that,” Salima Vellani, Kbox founder and CEO, told Business Insider in an interview. “Sales went up 300-500% during lockdown, you can survive and excel if you know how to deliver food in the right way.”
Kbox raised a GBP5 million seed round from Hoxton Ventures in July but was subsequently inundated with investor interest, according to Vellani, who said the company’s seed round was already three times oversubscribed.
“After we announced the round, twenty to thirty VCs from around the world came to us,” she added. “We knew we would grow fast and needed some money. The process took two weeks to term sheet and investors needed to bend over backwards to make it work because I have a business to run.”
The company is expanding its UK presence and also plans to enter the US market in the coming months. “The US is a tough nut to crack but food is universal,” Vellani added.
Check out Kbox’s (redacted) pitch deck below:
