18.5 Million Reasons VCs Like QSR and Sweetgreen

Tech investment group Revolution Growth are putting a lot more green into the fast food salad company Sweetgreen. Or to be exact: $18.5 million worth of green, Business Insider reported.

The company had previously invested $22 million into the restaurant chain. Revolution Growth, which is an investment fund from AOL cofounder Steve Case and fellow former AOL execs Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis, gives the restaurant chain the chance to grow along the east coast and will expand its presence in the west coast next year. Business Insider also reported that Behance cofounder Scott Belsky, Stonyfield Farm founder Gary Hirshberg, and restaurateurs Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud also contributed to the second round of funding, bringing the total invested to $40.5 million.

Sweetgreen is the creation of three Georgetown grads — Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, and Nathaniel Ru — who wanted to deliver a fast food option that tapped into local farms to source its ingredients, and do so in a quick, affordable way.

“The words ‘seasonality’ and ‘fast food’ are rarely used together, but at Sweetgreen, we believe that the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive — it just takes a commitment to standing behind our food ethos and working with farmers that share the same values,” Jammet said in a company news release.