Munchery raised $125M for meal delivery and shut overnight

Munchery started in San Francisco in 2010 as one of the first chef-prepared meal delivery services, bringing chilled dinners to doors in a narrow evening window. Investors bought the vision: a 2015 round valued the company at roughly $300 million, and total funding reached $125.4 million from backers including Menlo Ventures, Greycroft and Northgate Capital.

The unit economics never arrived. Munchery pivoted from prepared meals to meal kits, subscriptions and corporate lunches, and even ran pop-up shops in BART stations. It retreated from Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, laid off 257 staff — 30 percent of the workforce — in May 2018, and went through a contested recapitalisation in March 2017; its final chief executive was James Beriker, who had replaced co-founder Tri Tran.

On 21 January 2019 customers received an email: Munchery was ceasing operations effective immediately, with outstanding orders cancelled and refunded. Eight years and $125 million later it joined Sprig, Maple, Doughbies and Josephine — the meal-delivery startups that burned out in the same market. In March 2019 the company filed Chapter 11, listing $28.5 million of secured debt.