Sprig raised $57M to cook and deliver dinner — it was losing $850K a month before it quit

Sprig launched in San Francisco in November 2013, founded by Gagan Biyani, chef Nate Keller and Bryan Marks, cooking meals in its own central kitchen and delivering them with its own drivers rather than partnering with restaurants or a marketplace of couriers. It raised a $10 million Series A in 2014 led by Greylock Partners, then a $45 million Series B in April 2015 led by Social Capital and Greylock at a roughly $110 million valuation — around $57 million total — and expanded from San Francisco into the wider Bay Area and Chicago.

Owning the entire chain, from ingredient sourcing to the last-mile delivery, meant Sprig carried every cost of production and logistics itself, with no restaurant partner or gig-driver network to absorb any of it. Chicago operations were paused in July 2016. Even after retreating to San Francisco alone, the company was reportedly losing about $850,000 a month. In its final weeks it tried a walk-in café at its headquarters and started delivering through Caviar — moves press coverage read as signs of a company running out of options, not recovering.

Sprig shut down on May 26, 2017, laying off roughly 200 employees with two months' severance. CEO Gagan Biyani wrote in the shutdown announcement that 'the complexity of owning meal production through delivery at scale was a challenge.' It closed the same year as comparable owned-kitchen delivery startups Maple and SpoonRocket, while Munchery, running a similar model, was separately reported to be losing even more.