Plated was an American ingredient-and-recipe

meal kit A meal kit is a subscription service–foodservice business model where a company sends customers pre-portioned and sometimes partially-prepared food ingredients and recipes to prepare homecooked meals. Services that send pre-cooked meals ...

service that has been acquired by

Albertsons Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho. With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...

. The company was founded in 2012 and became well known through its participation in Techstars in 2013, ''

Shark Tank ''Shark Tank'' is an American business reality television series that premiered on August 9, 2009, on ABC.Hibberd, James (May 10, 201'Dancing,' 'Bachelor,' and a bigger 'Shark Tank' returning to ABCInsider TV. Retrieved June 24, 2012 The show i ...

'' in 2014 and '' Beyond the Tank'' in 2015. Plated's founders, Nick Taranto and Josh Hix, earned a deal on ''Shark Tank'' that fell through, but negotiated a deal with another investor after the show was filmed. The company accepted several rounds of

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

investments and remained private until it was acquired by Albertsons in September 2017.

History

Plated delivered meals in the form of weekly boxes that contained ingredients and recipes to be cooked by the customer. Founded by

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

classmates Nick Taranto and Josh Hix in 2012 and launched that November, the company was selected to be in the Spring 2013 Techstars NY class. It raised $1.4 million in seed round financing in May 2013 led by

ff Venture Capital ff Venture Capital is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage and early-stage funding to technology companies. Headquartered in New York City, ff Venture Capital was founded by John Frankel and Alex Katz in 2008, who a ...

with angel investors that included TechStars, Manischewitz Company CEO Alain Bankier,

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 ...

's Andrew McCollom, and

Paige Craig Paige Craig (born 1975) is a venture capitalist and general partner at Arena Ventures, a founder-focused, seed stage venture capital firm based in Los Angeles. Early life and education He began his career in the military in 1992, where he went to ...

. The company surpassed 100,000 meals delivered in the northeast and midwest regions of the United States by July 2013 and sought series A financing to begin nationwide service. That month, Plated appeared on episode 22 of the fifth season of ''Shark Tank'', which aired on April 4, 2014; on the show, Plated struck a deal with

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...

of $500,000 for 6% of the company. However, the deal never closed because Taranto and Hix, who had initially asked for a $500,000/4% deal on the show, wanted to renegotiate the deal based on growth after the show. Four months after the deal with Cuban fell through, the Plated founders made a deal with ''Shark Tanks

Kevin O'Leary Terence Thomas Kevin O'Leary (born 9 July 1954), also known as Mr. Wonderful, is a Canadian businessman, entrepreneur, and television personality. From 2004 to 2014, he appeared on various Canadian television shows. These include the business n ...

for an undisclosed sum. In January 2014, Plated earned $5 million of Series A venture capital funding. The company raised an additional $15 million in funding in August 2014 of what was called new Series A funding from Venture Capital Dispatch. In the company's first three years, the company moved into sequentially larger fulfillment centers 14 times due to growth. The company was featured in the second episode of the first season of ''Beyond the Tank'', which aired on May 8, 2015. By the following month, the company was expected to surpass $100 million in revenue for the year. In July 2015, Plated raised $35 million in Series B funding. It extended its series B funding by $20 million in the third quarter of 2016. On September 20, 2017, Plated was acquired by Albertsons for $300 million. In April 2018, Albertsons began selling Plated meal kits in some of its stores. In November 2019, Albertsons announced it was ending Plated's subscription service with the last delivery date being November 27, 2019.

References

External links

* {{Shark Tank Online food retailers of the United States American companies established in 2012 Retail companies established in 2012 Transport companies established in 2012 Internet properties established in 2012 American companies disestablished in 2019 Retail companies disestablished in 2019 Transport companies disestablished in 2019 Internet properties disestablished in 2019 2017 mergers and acquisitions Defunct subscription services