Recipe and ingredients delivery platform HelloFresh has raised $50 million (€36.8m) in Series D funding led by Insight Venture Partners. Existing investor Phenomen VC is also involved in the round. With the service currently available in Germany, the UK, the US, Austria, Australia and and the Netherlands, the money is set to go towards further international expansion after the Berlin-based company saw strong monthly growth and profitability in its core European market.
HelloFresh currently supplies well over a million meals a month to its customers and has a positive cash flow so far in 2014. Chefs create recipes each week complete with photos of how to cook them at home, and send out a package of the ingredients required to users.
Each Kochbox – German for Cookbox – contains three or five dishes, with pre-portioning reducing waste and cooking time no more than 30 minutes.
“Our ambitions with HelloFresh have always been very large. When you consider that more than 90 percent of all people eat most of their meals at home, yet at the same time the way people shop and plan their meals has not changed for 50 years, you quickly realise that there is a unique business opportunity here,” said Dominik Richter, founder and CEO of HelloFresh. “With our Kochbox model, we offer a great solution, as you can enjoy high-quality, healthy and home-cooked meals at home with your family or partner stress free. At the same time you will be hands-on with cooking and will be driven towards trying new dishes.”
Richter added that the company was hoping to establish a new category in the food space and to create a global brand.
Jeff Liebermann, managing director at Insight, said: “Buying groceries is very time-consuming. HelloFresh shows very successfully that there is an attractive alternative to conventional shopping of of individual groceries.
“We believe that the company will quickly expand its position as a global market leader in the online delivery of food.”
HelloFresh was founded in November 2011, and alongside its HQ in Berlin also has offices in New York, London, Amsterdam and Sydney. It currently employs 120 people and also counts Holtzbrinck Ventures, Vorwerk Ventures, Rocket Internet and Kinnevik.