ChowNow is an

online food ordering Online food ordering is the process of ordering food, for Food delivery, delivery or pickup, from a website or other application. The product can be either ready-to-eat food (e.g., direct from a home-kitchen, restaurant, or a virtual restaurant) o ...

platform that connects customers with local restaurants. Christopher Webb and Eric Jaffe, American entrepreneurs, founded the company in 2011 with headquarters in

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California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

History

The company ChowNow was founded in 2011 by Christopher Webb, a former employee of RBC Bank and

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...

; and Eric Jaffe, a former commercial real estate investor. The platform was launched in March 2012. In January 2013, ChowNow raised over 4 million U.S. dollars, including funding from accelerator Launchpad LA. The same year, ChowNow, initially part of the incubator Launchpad LA, closed a seed round of $1 million from GRP Partners, James Bailey and angel investors. For its expansion and product improvement, it further raised 10 million US dollars in venture funding in a round led by

Upfront Ventures Upfront Ventures, formerly known as GRP Partners, is a Santa Monica-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies. It is one of the largest venture capital firms in Los Angeles, with $2 billion in total raised funds. ...

. In October 2017, ChowNow raised $20 million U.S. dollars in a Series B round led by Catalyst Investors, bringing ChowNow's total funding to 40 million U.S. dollars. ChowNow's other notable investors include GRP Partners, Canyon Creek Capital, Clark Landry, Daher Capital, Double M Partners, Karlin Ventures, Launchpad LA, Tiller Partners,

, Velos Partners. In June 2016, ChowNow partnered with

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

and Postmates to enhance its services with an order delivery feature called Flex Delivery service. In August of the same year, ChowNow introduced a feature that allows potential diners to place orders directly from

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

search results including thousands of restaurants across U.S. and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. In October 2016, ChowNow teamed up with Squarespace, a

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

and

website builder Website builders are tools that typically allow the construction of websites without manual code editing. They fall into two categories: * online proprietary tools provided by web hosting service companies. These are typically intended for serv ...

platform, to enable restaurants with ChowNow's entire suite of online ordering tools. In May 2018, ChowNow released a feature that allows customers to place orders via a restaurant's

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

profile.

Overview

ChowNow's online ordering technology enables independent restaurants to take orders via their own branded channels. The company was launched in March 2012 at the National Restaurant Show in

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and currently partners with thousands of restaurants in 50 states in U.S. In addition to operating a consumer-facing platform, ChowNow allows restaurants to individually customize and brand their ordering apps. Restaurants can use ChowNow's online ordering technology to take orders directly through their

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

page and Instagram profile.

Operation

ChowNow operates on a SaaS model where restaurants subscribe on a monthly basis. The company does not prepare or deliver food. As the restaurant receives the order on its website, mobile app, Facebook, or Google page, ChowNow processes the order and communicates back to the diner for pickup or delivery. Last, ChowNow collects information from diners' orders and provides this information to the restaurants for remarketing. The user places an order from an online menu displayed on ChowNow's interface. Upon receiving confirmation of a diner's order through the integrated Apple Pay, Yelp or Google Wallet, the system forwards it to the selected restaurant. As it receives the order on its Facebook page website, or Instagram, this restaurant processes it and communicates back to the diner for delivery. Last, ChowNow collects information from diners' orders for its data analytics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:ChowNow Online food retailers of the United States Companies based in Los Angeles American companies established in 2011 Retail companies established in 2011 Internet properties established in 2011