Bogotá based Foodology has raised an additional $20 million USD in equity and $30 million dollars in debt financing to fuel expansion and brand development across Latin America. Unlike traditional restaurants, cloud kitchen operators like Foodology develop virtual restaurant brands exclusively for delivery, meaning they can take advantage of less expensive locations without dining facilities.
Such business models were supercharged by the COVID pandemic lockdowns, which put cloud kitchens on equal footing with traditional restaurants that counted on visiting diners. Cloud kitchens are also called dark kitchens, ghost kitchens, or virtual kitchens.
Foodology was founded in 2019 by Daniela Izquierdo and Juan Guillermo Azuero. Last year, the company raised $15 million in series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz and Base Partners, on top of initial seed founding amounting to approximately $5 million. At the time of the Series A funding, Foodology was running 20 kitchens in Colombia and 10 in Mexico and had just passed 1 million customer orders.
During the past year, the company has expanded to 83 locations across four countries and expects to surpass 100 locations by the end of the year. Part of the company’s strategy is to operate multiple retail brands serving varied cuisines from the same physical location. With its delivery-only model, consumers may be unaware that brands are affiliated or being served from the same food preparation facility.
Foodology says it plans to use the additional funding to expand into Brazil, a country infamous for having a difficult operating environment for foreign and even domestic investors.
Research platform Tracxn ranks Foodology as #1 among direct competitors in what it calls the “trending theme” of internet-first restaurants. Comparable operators according to Tracxn, include Curefoods, Box8, Faasos/Eatsure, Factor, and Taster, but none are active in Latin America. All but two of the aforementioned comparables are located in India.
In the Series B funding round, $30 million in debt was underwritten by TriplePoint Capital, while existing equity investors Andreesen Horowitz, Kayyak Ventures, Base Partners and Wollef are joined by Chimera and Reggaetón music star Juan Luís Londoño, also known as Maluma.