LANCH co-founders
LANCH
LANCH, a virtual kitchen and food delivery start-up, has raised €2.5 million with German soccer star Mario Götze among its backers.
The Berlin start-up builds a platform for running online food delivery brands and has attracted a slew of German celebrity investors in the pre-seed round including rapper Luciano, TV personality Jens ‘Knossi’ Knossalla, YouTuber Trymacs and former German international soccer player André Schürrle.
The company, founded late last year and now coming out of “stealth”, is further backed by venture capital firm HV Capital and founders of Gorillas and FlixBux.
LANCH partners with restaurants to create and cook meals under the brand names devised by a partner creator.
The start-up is seeking to build food brands around artists and creators to tap into their fan bases.
To date it has launched a pizza brand called Happy Slice along with Knossi and Trymacs
“The kitchens are operated by the restaurant owners, but LANCH is in charge of scouting them, ensuring the quality standards, setting up the collaboration and delivering the ingredients,” a spokesperson for the start-up said.
LANCH takes a “lower double digit percentage” of deliveries, which are carried out on existing delivery platforms. The start-up said it now has more than 70 locations in Germany with a chicken brand in conjunction with rapper Luciano set to launch next.
“Our close connection to the creator economy enables a fundamentally more efficient way of acquiring customers compared to traditional virtual kitchen concepts,” Jonas Meynert, chief operating officer of LANCH, said.
“The digital brand experience of each of our brands also offers fan articles, raffles, exclusive access to events and much more. This way, the community can actively shape the future of the brand.”
Meynert co-founded the company with Kevin Kock, who previously started the virtual kitchen start-up Honest Food which was acquired by Delivery Hero, and Nono Konopka.
Currently the start-up is only operating in Germany but said that it has signed up creators from other countries to lead some of its brands.
Along with the celebrity investments, the start-up has attracted backing from a number of notable German angel investors.
“I invested in LANCH because I am convinced that the team is building the biggest mainstream brands of the future,” FlixBus founder Jochen Engert said. “The close relationship between creators and their communities is a big value add for all involved parties at LANCH.”
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