Sprig, a food delivery service that brings healthy, inexpensive meals to San Francisco residents’ doors, has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Greylock Partners with Battery Ventures and Accel participating. As part of the funding, Greylock partner Simon Rothman is joining Sprig’s board, and we’re told the investment is the first one from Greylock’s $100 million marketplace initiative announced last year.
The company previously raised $2 million in seed financing from Battery Ventures, Accel, Rothman, Andrew McCollum, Larry Braitman, Haroon Mokhtarzada, Darian Shirazi, MHS Capital, Jim Payne, Dan Martell, Andrew Garvin, and Pascal Levy-Garboua.
Sprig brings locally sourced, sustainable, seasonal meals directly to your home or office, and gives customers a choice of a three different meal choices for delivery. Meals cost $10 each (plus a $2 delivery fee that includes tip and tax) and generally include one entrée selection and a couple of sides. Sprig users make purchases via mobile app, which stores their location and payment information, and food is delivered within about 20 minutes. Our intrepid reporter Ryan Lawler tried Sprig out last year, and gave the service a generally positive review.
Sprig was co-founded by Gagan Biyani, who had been on the founding team of online education startup Udemy, and had also worked as an adviser to Lyft during its expansion into the Los Angeles market. (Disclosure: Once upon a time, Biyani was part of the TechCrunch family as a contributor to MobileCrunch.)
The startup’s executive chef is Nate Keller, who was previously executive chef at Google during its growth from 400 to about 40,000 employees. Other co-founders include Neeraj Berry, who runs ops; product lead Morgan Springer; and engineering lead Matt Kent.
As Rothman explains, “The simplicity of the proposition masks the enormous complexity underneath. It’s really hard to quickly and affordably deliver organic, locally sourced meals prepared by experienced chefs. There are delivery logistics, hybrid online/offline user experience, and food quality? — ?all done in real time. It’s hard. Really hard. It’s a balancing act between price, convenience, and quality. Most businesses are lucky to do one well. Successful companies can do two. Being able to do all three is how you revolutionize an industry. Sprig has started down the path of being a market-defining company.”
The general space Sprig is playing in is relatively large — there’s Munchery and SpoonRocket, which are also both picking up steam. But there is an opportunity beyond San Francisco to offer these meals. For example, a friend of mine in Boston recently had a baby, and I wanted to send her a few, healthy meals. I found one local startup who did this but none of the companies that launched in SF had expanded to Boston. Yet. If startups like Sprig can lock down a local expansion strategy, I think there is huge potential for building a marketplace as large as Uber or Lyft.
The new funding will be used towards the customer experience for customers in San Francisco, expansion to new markets and for hiring.
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