Subscription-based meal kit company Sun Basket announced today it has raised $30 million in a Series E funding round. According to a press release sent via email, the round was led by PivotNorth Capital, with participation from Sapphire Ventures, August Capital, Founders Circle, Unilever Ventures, and others. This brings Sun Basket’s total funding to $125 million.
The company is especially known for its use of clean, organic foods and its wide variety of meal plans from which to choose. Got a diet restriction? Sun Basket’s probably the best kit to go with, whether your goal is something as simple as losing a few pounds via the carb-conscious plan to something more serious, like managing diabetes. Meal plans range between about $10.99 to $11.99 per serving depending on the frequency and number of people eating off the plan.
The mail-order meal kit space is a challenging one at the moment, and many companies moving away from the model and instead selling kits in grocery store aisles. On the heels of Kroger buying Home Chef last year, Albertsons scooping up Plated (they laying off staff), and Giant making a deal with HelloFresh, Nielsen reported that growth in this sector came from in-store sales.
Still, those facts don’t render the mail-order meal kit irrelevant. In fact, Sun Basket CEO Adam Zbar keeps an optimistic outlook on the space. While he acknowledged to me, via email, that “there will be substantial consolidation in the space as the winners rise to the top,” he also said that, “Long-term, the meal kit and more generally the direct-to-consumer meal/grocery delivery has the potential to dramatically disrupt the $1T food system with a fundamentally healthier, more convenient, more personal, and delicious option.”
The funding will allow Sun Basket to expand its product line to include breakfast and lunch offerings, in addition to the dinner meals it already delivers to customers. Longer term, Sun Basket plans to unroll an AI-powered digital user experience. Zbar wouldn’t go into details on that, saying only we should “look for cool advancements in this area in quarters to come.”
Previously, Sun Basket raised a $42.8 million Series D round and a $15 million debt financing round in January 2018. The company is based in San Francisco, CA.
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