Founders: Stefania Mallett & Briscoe Rodgers
Founding: 2007
Mission: The world’s largest marketplace for corporate catering
Employees: 700 & ~50% local
Workplace: Hybrid
Stage & Capital Raised: Series D & $420M raised
Investors: Insight Partners, Softbank, ICONIQ, Lightspeed, GIC, etc.
Key Customers: Car Gurus, FedEx Ground, Baltimore Orioles, Puma, Chewy, etc.
Glassdoor Rating: 4.3
Valuation (estimated): $750M – $2.5B (valued at $1.6B in its Q4 2021 Series D-2 fundraise)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!
ezCater is the world’s “largest marketplace for corporate catering”. They make it easy to order food online for your office. This Boston area late stage growth startup is a second attempt business founded in 2007 by Stefania Mallett & Briscoe Rodgers. The original concept had traction but was unfortunately shut down when they ran out of money before it could reach profitability. The second time, Stefanie & Briscoe had a great insight for their restart*. They pivoted the company from a vertical, single industry approach to a horizontal, multi-industry model.
The original business concept helped medical device sales reps solve the “last mile problem” for meetings by providing catering options for their client meetings out in the field. ezCater’s big unlock was that there were many more industries that had this same need. When you host a meeting at someone’s office from architects to financial planners to advertising agencies and beyond…they usually like (expect) you to bring food in for the office. And so ezCater was born.
Stefania was the experienced operating executive with a successful previous exit under her belt and Briscoe was the “idea guy” who lived and breathed the product side of the house. There have been a couple platform shifts since 2007 but one thing has remained the same..people still need to eat!
The problem that ezCater has been tackling since 2007 is the hassle and inefficiency of traditional catering ordering methods for meetings. They’ve successfully aggregated the supply – thousands of restaurants – on behalf of their corporate clients. And think about how much the world has changed since 2007. Google’s IPO in 2004 and subsequent skyward ascent has undoubtedly shaped the corporate approach to perks (and meals) benefitting ezCater and changing workplaces forever.
I bring you ezCater this week because, while you’re likely familiar with the name and the overall concept, their business has rapidly changed through the pandemic. So have the problems, better stated as tailwinds. The traditional ezCater model would have served a relatively “fixed supply” of mouths and meetings on a weekly basis. The amount of people in an office on a given day in February 2020 was relatively consistent. Maybe you order a little less food as the summer months approach but most people by and large were still booking meetings.
ezCater then experienced an 85% drop in revenue at the beginning of COVID. They had to transition from “one off” catering options to full corporate food solutions, growing their addressable market considerably. Today, companies need dynamic solutions to help them manage their food spend. Their clients are also looking for cost savings in the tighter, higher rate economic environment so they’re incentivized to throw out the cafeteria model entirely and switch to “on-demand” models like the one ezCater provides. Restaurants have become multi-revenue too in the sense that the majority serve customers who dine-in and customers who dine-out. Customers dining out became a much larger footprint these past couple years so there’s incentive to grow that “product line”.
15 years into their journey, the problems are changing but ezCater has consistently delivered serious growth and scale. Their platform now supports over 105,000 restaurants. They serve 93% of Fortune 500 workplaces. Their customer service group answers the phone 24/7 and they are known as the most trusted provider of corporate food solutions.
ezCater continues to double down on investments in technology, leadership, customer service, and a ton of options through their scale. On the demand side ezCater serves Facilities & HR teams, Finance teams, and executive leadership who set the tone for the type of workplace they’d like to present to their employees. On the supply side they work to bring restaurants on the platform and have built growth, management & delivery solutions to help them scale their corporate offerings.
The numbers support their progress. They’ve seen 91% YTD bookings growth through Q3 ‘22 with multiple record breaking weeks over that time period according to this article in Hospitality Technology. I’m sure some of that growth is part of the return to office “bounceback” but it’s still impressive that they continue to reach new highs.
As the platform has grown, ezCater has focused on upholding their consistency and standards for their catering partners. They’ve provided training, instituted review processes, and invested in support to help corporate customers with their ordering decisions. And of course there’s more competition today too. Local catering options, other marketplaces like Forkable, or food delivery services like DoorDash & UberEats round out the landscape.
*Great insight into the ezCater founding story in this VentureFizz podcast here (minutes 15 – 17)
Operators to Know (Locally):
- Amaia Arruabarrena, Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
- Jeremy Cantarow, Director of Product Marketing
- Madison Edwards, Director, Customer Insights
- Kristen Fleischer, Director of Software Engineering
- Veronica Gage, Brand Marketing Director
- David Goldsmith, Director, Enterprise Programs
- Brandon Green, Director of Product, Fulfillment
- Russ Kiser, Director, Head of Product Analytics
- Zachary Kovat, Director of Talent
- Giliah Librach, Director, Operations
- Joe Lind, Director of Engineering, Growth
- Max Librach, Product Director and General Manager, Relish
- Tina McDonough, Director of Marketing
- Sara Nash Lundgren, Senior Manager, Communications
- Phil Morris, Director of Engineering
- Haley Wilcox, Director, Enterprise Sales & Partnership
My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the ezCater team I know I missed many up & coming operators internally
Key Roles To Be Hired:
- Analytics Manager – Customer Service
- Lead Analyst, Product
- Marketing Analytics Manager, Retention
- Director of Corporate Solutions Marketing
- Director, Data Engineering and Machine Learning
- Senior Manager – Analytics/Data Engineering
If I were interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:
- How does ezCater align the organization against the different sides of the marketplace?
- How has the business changed through the pandemic? Where have investments materially shifted?
- What are the biggest competitive threats to ezCater and how does ezCater’s roadmap help defend against competition?
- What are the company’s goals for the next 12-18 months? Team’s goals?
We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about ezCater you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team bring more corporate cafeterias into the digital age. All hungry employees applaud your efforts. See you around town and at lunch pretty much..everywhere!