GrubMarket, a kind of on-demand farmer’s market that will deliver goods right to your door, announced it has raised $25 million in an oversubscribed C1 round (hat tip: TechCrunch). The round — originally meant to be $15 million — was led by WI Harper Group and Digital Garage, with participation from Evolv Ventures, Arancia International Inc., University Growth Fund, and CentreGold Capital. Existing investors also participated: ACE & Company, GGV Capital, Fusion Fund, Bascom Ventures. This latest round brings GrubMarket’s total funding to $89.1 million.
The company sources food directly from farmers then sells it online to individual consumers, businesses, and as wholesale to other businesses. Right now, the company counts WeWork and Whole Foods among its clients.
To use GrubMarket, one need only sign up for an account, fill a shopping cart, and pick a delivery date. You can also opt to pick your order up at a farmer’s market or in some cases directly from the seller. There’s no subscription required to use the site, which offers free delivery on orders over $39.99 and a $5.99 fee for smaller orders.
It’s not a bad deal for sellers, either, who can set up a virtual storefront in minutes on the GrubMarket site and get access to a potentially larger audience through GrubMarket’s customer base.
But as far as that customer base goes, GrubMarket will have to work hard to compete, as it has a growing amount of company in the farm-to-table-delivery space. Farmbox Direct ships its organic produce nationwide. Good Eggs raised a $50 million Series C round in May of 2018, and in Europe, and in the UK, Farmdrop closed a £10 million round to deliver its predominately organic and local goods to consumers.
GrubMarket, who is inching towards an IPO, told TechCrunch it plans to use the $25 million funding for new technology and more acquisitions. It’s done a couple of the latter, including Southern California’s Chasin Foods in January and FarmBox SF in 2016.
For now, the San Francisco-based company only serves counties in the Bay Area: Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, Alameda County, San Francisco County, Contra Costa, and Marin County.
Thanks for this press about GrubMarket! We just wanted to let everyone know that we actually deliver to many more areas beyond just 6 counties of the Bay Area, as we deliver across Southern California, New Jersey, and New York as well. These other regions have different dedicated websites, such as our specific website for the Southern California region: https://www.socal.grubmarket.com/
Thanks again!
GrubMarket Team