Paris Food Tech Startup Raises $80M to Expand Virtual Food Delivery Franchise

Food tech startup Not So Dark (NSD) has raised $80 million in a Series B funding round it will use to further expand its virtual food delivery franchise model across Europe.

The funding was led by Kharis Capital and Verlinvest, with additional participation from Conviviality Ventures. With the fresh capital, the company has raised $105 million to date, Tech Funding News reported on Monday (Sept. 26).

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Headquartered in Paris, France and co-founded in 2020 by Clement Benoit and Alexandre Haggai, the food tech startup offers a franchised virtual delivery model for physical restaurants. The service enables smaller eateries the chance to run a mobile delivery operation from their own kitchens with a digital franchise that works in the background.

“Pivoting and starting from zero was a massive undertaking. But we saw so clearly that the future of the online delivery industry was in forging partnerships with traditional restaurants — not competing with them,” said Benoit, per the news outlet.

Benoit added that the new capital will help bolster the company’s “market leadership in France” while also helping it expand its footprint “across Europe at a very fast pace.”

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Not So Dark currently has a portfolio of 150 partners that operate in more than 100 cities along with a workforce of 100 employees. Artificial intelligence and machine learning power the platform’s integrated data analytics.

“We’ve studied the dark kitchens market and watched its rapid development. We believe NSD cracked the model that essentially allows all parties involved to profitably grow their business while offering customers alternative and convenient food offerings,” Kharis Capital Managing Partner Daniel Grossman said in the Tech Funding News report.

He added that in just a year’s time, Not So Dark is already established as a “major figure in the sector.”