setting the scene
- after devouring a third slice of your grandma’s banana bread, a business opportunity comes to mind
- “grandma, you should really start selling your banana bread” 💵
- with her packed Mahjong schedule, she’s far too busy to open a bakery 🧁
- what if there was another way her recipe could reach the masses?
- this week’s company provides a recipe marketplace that would allow grandma to roll in the dough 💰
in a sentence
Foody is a marketplace where culinary creators can monetize their content and home cooks can purchase and organize recipes
- culinary creators: amateur cooks to Michelin-star chefs publish and sell their recipes and cooking videos
- home cooks: discover, buy, and save your favorite recipes, ad-free
- organize: digitally sort and store recipes
bulleted version: just like how Spotify allows users to listen, save their favorite songs and artists, and monetize content, Foody provides a platform to discover and post recipes 🍽
the basics
- industry: foodtech
- headquarters: San Francisco
- year founded: 2020
- company size: < 10 employees 🧳
- investors: Serena Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Jack Conte, Vivek Patel, Neil Mehta, Shoaib Makani
- amount raised: 1.5m
- investment stage: seed 🌱
due diligence
what we like
- 🥰 home cooked meals: for the 98% of Americans who prefer cooking at home, Foody offers a well-designed platform to pick a recipe and start cooking
- partnerships: bringing on chefs and influencers like Jeremiah Tower, Amanda Haas, Laura and Sayat Ozyilmaz, and Tu David Phu will attract early users and ensure diverse food representation from the start
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new monetization trends: as the creator economy continues to grow across industries, fans are increasingly willing to pay for content
- plus, culinary creators need a way to monetize their content
potential risks
- 💻 online recipes: will Foody’s solutions to the cooking experience be enough to move at-home cooks away from the numerous free recipes that exist today?
- 👩🍳 too many cooks in the kitchen: if too many creators join the platform, users may find it difficult to select their favorite chefs and recipes
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phone eats first: social platforms like Instagram and TikTok have dominated food discovery
- Foody must incorporate a sticky and mobile social experience to keep users on the platform
founder profiles
- Daniel Stitzel (Founder @ The Stitzel Company, prev. Berg Holdings)
- Brenna Stitzel (prev. Morgan Stanley, Sandler O’Neill & Partners)
comps
why Foody: Foody’s tasteful platform solves the overwhelming nature of recipe discovery, while also giving creators recognition and an opportunity to monetize 🍳