Filipina-led MadEats expands kitchen operations with $1.7M seed funding (Sabong News)
Author
Robert D. Reyes
Date
MAY 10 2022
Filipina-led online delivery-only restaurant startup MadEats bags a US$125,000 deal from Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator raising their total funding to US$1.7M based on previous investments made by JAM Fund, Crystal Towers Capital, Starling Ventures, local syndicate MAIN, Rebel Fund, and Luis Sia’s (PayMongo co-founder) 335 Fund.
MadEats builds a wide variety of approachable, high-quality virtual food brands leveraging tech to make operations more efficient and delivery-friendly. The company is the country’s first-ever “full-stack” delivery-only startup to build its own food concepts, take orders from its virtual storefront, and fulfill deliveries with its own fleet of riders — having full control of its customers’ experience end-to-end.
Launched in November 2020, MadEats at present maintains a total of six (06) brands: Yang Gang is an addictive Korean fried chicken shop; Chow Time is an easy, crave-able Chinese takeout; Fried Nice is a playful take on fried rice; Dot Coffee is a tech-forward coffee brand with approachable prices; MadBakes is MadEats’ test kitchen for desserts; and MadMakes for bulk orders, corporate packages, and packed meals. The startup promises to launch even more brands and add new products to its existing lineup hinting that its next brand will be focused on no-frills smash burgers that don’t break the bank.
In addition to launching new brands, MadEats is aggressive about expanding to more ghost kitchens across Metro Manila. With three (03) ghost kitchens in Makati City, Quezon City, and the City of Manila, they can have wider coverage for quicker deliveries and bring their products even closer to their customers.
“We’re really excited about building more kitchens across Metro Manila & scale the virtual concepts we created the past year. It’s about time F&B innovates and we want MadEats to be the modern-day virtual restaurant, focusing on creating better products and scaling them faster through ghost kitchens so customers get a better dining experience, wherever they are. The MadKitchenOS is something we’ve all been working really hard on. We believe that this is what will really help us scale faster,” according to Mikee Villareal, Chief Executive Officer of MadEats.
Their kitchen expansion also includes plans to enable their kitchens with advanced technologies through the MadEats Platform, an end-to-end ecosystem of applications, services, and custom third-party integrations, designed in-house that aims to deeply connect with its customers through its digital stores and to efficiently facilitate the company’s operations through its suite of internal tools called MadKitchenOS. So far, the platform includes an automated order routing system, ensuring orders are fulfilled at the nearest available location, as well as dedicated analytics facilities that help further establish MadEats as a data-driven organization.
Moving forward, it continues to look for more ways to reach out to its customers, which includes order notification features and the MadEats mobile app currently in the pipeline. Furthermore, it’s also gearing up to expand its operational capacity through new applications and integrations within MadKitchenOS, with a comprehensive kitchen display and management system also in the works.
