While the UK, France and Germany have hotbeds of startup activity in the ghost kitchen and virtual restaurant space over the past couple years, Sweden and the bustling Stockholm innovation ecosystem has been relatively quiet when it comes to new restaurant tech startups.
A new ghost kitchen startup called KitchenGrowth hopes to change that. The company, which raised 1.5 million Swedish krona (approximately $180,000 USD), has plans to build and rent its multi-tenant kitchens in the Stockholm market.
According to cofounder Joakim Ödlund, the company will own the units and offer them as fully managed dark kitchens to operators via a kitchen-as-a-service model. The company will offer turnkey operations that include electricity, water, grease collection as well as Wi-Fi and some technology integration/assistance. According to Ödlund, the company will not create any of its own branded concepts and will focus on supporting its restaurant customers’ virtual efforts.
Ödlund told me the KitchenGrowth has already secured its first customer in Svenska Brasserier, a large multiconcept restaurant operator in Stockholm that runs some of Stockholm’s most well known restaurants such as Riche, Sturehof, and Taverna Brillo. KitchenGrowth will launch its first two locations starting in July.
While KitchenGrowth was only founded in February of this year, the founders have big plans. “Our goal is to put up growth hubs where we can have 4-8 kitchen spaces in one location,” said Ödlund. “We want to help bring down the delivery times and create a “Food court in the cloud.””
