New technologies have changed the globe and brought in many innovations to every industry. The FoodTech industry is no exception, a sector that has adapted various technologies like IoT, big data, artificial intelligence, etc. to create a sustainable and secure future for us. FoodTech startups along with performing the basic task of either producing or delivering food also tackle various real-world challenges such as food wastage, the environmental impact of food production, lack of natural resources, excessive meat consumption, and more.
Talking about the American food scene, it has experienced significant change over the past two decades. Americans are the largest consumers of fast food globally and awareness about the ill-effects of fast food has grown considerably here, with people having started focusing on healthy eating. A number of FoodTech startups in the USA are running with an aim to encourage the same.
In this article, we highlight the TOP 10 FoodTech Startups in the USA:
1. Lineage Logistics
Founders: Greg Lehmkuhl
Founding Year: 2012
Headquarters: Novi, Michigan
Funding received: US$ 2.3B
Investors: Morgan Stanley, D1 Capital Partners, EPIQ Capital Group, OPTrust Private Markets Group, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, Oxford Properties Group, Cohen & Steers Inc., CenterSquare Investment Management and BentallGreenOak
Lineage Logistics is a warehousing and logistics startup that leverages technology to deliver quality food, increase distribution efficiency, promote sustainability, reduce environmental impact, and minimize supply chain waste. Its wide-ranging real estate network helps clients increase their productivity and protect the integrity of its temperature-regulated supply chain. Lineage offers services such as cold storage, port-centric warehousing, automated warehousing, on-demand transportation, LTI consolidation, on-site processing of food, re-distribution, and more. It has a roster of customers ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small family-owned enterprises.
It has acquired multiple cold storage companies over the years, some of which include Emergent Cold, Frigo’s – Heerenberg B.V., Henningsen Cold Storage Co., Ontario Refrigerated Services, Southern Cold Storage and more.
Lineage featured as the No 1. Data Science company on Fast Company’s yearly list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2019, and was also ranked 23rd in an evaluation of thousands of companies globally.
2. Impossible Foods
Founders: Monte Casino and Patrick Brown
Founding Year: 2011
Headquarters: Redwood City, California
Funding received: US$ 1.4B
Investors: Khosla Ventures, GV, Temasek Holdings, Horizons Ventures, Microsoft, Alexis Ohanian, Coatue, Viking Global Ventures, Trinity Capital Investment, Bill Gates, G Squared, UBS and 32 more investors.
Impossible Foods is a FoodTech startup developing plant-derived substitutes for meat, dairy, and fish products. It chooses specific proteins and nutrients from vegetations, seeds, and grains to recreate food items similar to meat and dairy products. It leverages cellular agriculture technology to produce real blood using a plant-derived molecule called ‘heme’, which is then filled in the product. Heme is what makes meat taste like meat, therefore the startup’s product replicates animal meat to a very great extent.
Impossible Foods offers multiple products namely, the Impossible Burger, Impossible Sausage, Impossible Breakfast Sandwich, Impossible Croissan’wich and Impossible Pork. It claims that Impossible Burger production uses 96% less land, 87% less water, and generates 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
The startup strives to create a sustainable global food system.
3. Toast
Founders: Aman Narang, Jonathan Grimm and Steve Fredette
Founding Year: 2011
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts
Funding received: US$ 902M
Investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, GV, Tiger Global Management, Eight Roads Ventures, TCV, F-Prime Capital, T. Rowe Price, TPG, Lead Edge Capital, G Squared, Generation Investment Management, Greenoaks Capital, Counterpart Advisors, Durable Capital Partners, Light Street Capital, Princeton Ventures, Riot Ventures and Alta Park Capital, LP
Toast is an all-purpose point-of-sale and restaurant supervision platform for businesses operating in the food and beverage, and hospitality sector. It offers a cloud-based system built mainly for its restaurant clients. Its solutions also enable tableside ordering, swift menu changes, real-time enterprise reporting, online ordering, and employee management on a user-friendly interface.
Toast also offers tableside payments to the customers, where credit, debit and gift cards are accepted.
4. Zume Pizza
Founders: Alex Garden and Julia Collins
Founding Year: 2015
Headquarters: Mountain View, California
Funding received: US$ 423M
Investors: FJ Labs, Maveron, Fabrice Grinda, AME Cloud Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund, SGH CAPITAL, SignalFire, Kortschak Investments, L.P., Vijay Chattha and Grant Allen
Zume Pizza is a FoodTech startup that operates an online pizza delivery chain. Its specialty is that it uses robots for kitchen operations. Zume’s robots are manufactured by the manufacturing company ABB. Customers order online or through its mobile app. Packaging of the pizza and its delivery is taken care of by its staff.
Zume Pizza claims that its manufacturing unit can make more than 288 pizzas in an hour.
5. Freshly
Founders: Carter Comstock and Michael Wystrach
Founding Year: 2012
Headquarters: New York, New York
Funding received: US$ 107M
Investors: Insight Partners, Alumni Ventures Group, Highland Capital Partners, Slow Ventures, Total Access Fund, White Star Capital, Monkfish Equity, The Yard Ventures, Chestnut Street Ventures, Blue Ivy Ventures, Jason Finger, Purple Arch Ventures, BrandProject and Nestle
Freshly delivers epicurean ready-to-eat meals, delivered at the consumer’s doorstep. The FoodTech startup offers first-class, professionally-prepared meals, based on the paleo principles (involves avoiding processed foods and focusing on healthy, whole foods). The skilled chefs at Freshly utilize locally-obtained and organic ingredients to prepare fresh, gourmet ready-to-eat meals intended to improve health. Consumers can choose from among the multiple subscription plans available on their app or website to order meals.
Freshly is dedicated to making healthy eating and accomplishing health and fitness goals easier than ever.
6. Olo
Founders: Noah Glass
Founding Year: 2005
Headquarters: New York, New York
Funding received: US$ 81.3M
Investors: RRE Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Founder Collective, Core Capital Partners, PayPal Ventures, The Raine Group, Core Capital, Staley Capital and Danny Meyer
Olo is a digital food ordering platform that connects restaurant brands to the on-demand world. The startup’s platform handles millions of orders per week across every point of restaurant e-commerce, from fully-branded user interfaces to the in-house order management features that help over 60K restaurants run efficiently.
Olo currently caters to almost 100 million consumers who order and get meals delivered from their favorite restaurants, such as Applebee’s (DIN), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Chili’s (EAT), Denny’s (DENN), Five Guys Burgers & Fries, Jamba Juice (JMBA), Noodles World Kitchen (NDLS), and many more.
7. Hint
Founders: Kara Goldin
Founding Year: 2005
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Funding received: US$ 51.5M
Investors: The Perkins Fund, Verlinvest, GingerBread Capital, Springboard Growth Capital LLC, Philippe Laffont and Medina Heights Capital Partners
Hint, Inc. produces and sells naturally-flavored unsweetened essence water. Its products include watermelon, blackberry, cucumber, pear, and lime-flavored water.
The startup distributes its products via grocery stores, spas, hotels, and an online portal.
8. Ollie
Founders: Alexandre Douzet, Gabby Slome and Randy Jimenez
Founding Year: 2016
Headquarters: New York, New York
Funding received: US$ 46.6M
Investors: Canaan Partners, Lerer Hippeau, Alumni Ventures Group, Correlation Ventures, Total Access Fund, Primary Venture Partners, RiverPark Ventures, Rosecliff Ventures, Blue Ivy Ventures and WME Ventures
Ollie is a pet wellness brand that provides freshly cooked, food personalized to each dog’s nutritional needs. Ollie’s custom-made meals are free of by-products and are portioned, packed, and delivered directly to the customer’s doorstep.
The startup works with skilled veterinary doctors to prepare its AAFCO-compliant recipes, because of which it is able to understand each dog’s precise nutritional needs based on a patented algorithm. The food items are made of natural ingredients like sweet potato and cod liver oil, which makes it easier for the dog to absorb and get true nutritional benefits.
Through Ollie’s carefully created diets, dogs can justly live their healthiest and happiest lives.
9. Popmenu
Founders: Brendan Sweeney, Justis Blasco, Mike Gullo and Tony Roy
Founding Year: 2016
Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia
Funding received: US$ 22.1M
Investors: Felicis Ventures, Base10 Partners, Bedrock Capital, Chapter One Ventures and MANTIS Venture Capital
Popmenu is a SaaS-driven FoodTech startup that benefits restaurants by turning their menu into an essential tool for attracting and gaining potential customers. Its cloud-based marketing and customer engagement platform use smart algorithms to monitor and turn menus, customer feedback, customer ratings, and similar information into an interactive setting for hotels and customers to communicate directly with each other and access custom-made menu and restaurant recommendations in real-time.
The startup’s solution enables businesses to take charge of their menu and increase customer engagement easily.
10. Daring Foods
Founders: Eliott Kessas and Ross Mackay
Founding Year: 2018
Headquarters: Los Angeles, California
Funding received: US$ 8.8M
Investors: Maveron, Chung Ng, Stray Dog Capital, GoodFriends, Brian Swette, Palm Tree Crew Investments and Mike Smith
Daring Foods is a FoodTech startup that produces plant-derived chicken with an aim to provide a healthy food substitute. The startup’s products include vegan meat products that are dairy and egg-free. The food items do not contain palm oil, genetically altered organisms, hormones, or antibiotics, thus creating a sustainable, tasty and nourishing plant-derived choice for audiences who love to gorge on chicken multiple times a week.
We try our best to fact check and bring the best, well-researched and non-plagiarized content to you. Please let us know
-if there are any discrepancies in any of our published stories,
-how we can improve,
-what stories you would like us to cover and what information you are looking for, in the comments section below or through our contact form! We look forward to your feedback and thank you for stopping by!
Next Story.
[…] TOP 10 FoodTech Startups in the USA […]