Ritual has closed a US $70 million Series C round of financing led by Georgian Partners with participation from existing investors Greylock Partners, Insight Ventures, Mistral Venture Partners.
Toronto based Ritual develops order ahead app connecting restaurants with customers to offer a simple, time saving tool to place, pay for and pick-up lunch orders for themselves and their workplace teams.
Ritual closed its US $43.5 million Series B financing in September 2017, which was by Insight Venture Partners and joined by existing investors Greylock Partners, Mantella Venture Partners, Golden Ventures and Mistral Venture Partners.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Ray Redd, COO Robert Kim and Larry Stinson, Ritual has raised US $127.5 million in venture funding.
photo credit: Ritual
News Release
SAN FRANCISCO — JUNE 6, 2018 — Order ahead app Ritual today announced year over year growth to more than 44,500 workplace teams added and 2x growth of restaurant partners, in addition to expansion into four new cities and the closing of a $70 million Series C.
Ritual’s rapid growth is largely driven by workplace teams adopting its social ordering and delivery feature Piggyback. Upon signing up for Ritual, Piggyback connects users with teams based on workplace and location, creating a dynamic social element to ordering and picking up lunch, which is often an otherwise individual experience.
“For many urban workers, their neighborhood is their food court. Ritual is designed so that colleagues and coworkers can easily enjoy the local eateries around them and feel like they are one team dining together,” said Ray Reddy, Co-Founder and CEO, Ritual.
“Furthermore, Ritual makes it easy for teams to order and bring food back to the office for colleagues. Once restaurants have one customer on Ritual, they are giving that customer a tool to save time when they order and pick-up, and turning that same customer into an advocate for its brand in the workplace, leveraging a network effect that drives additional lunch orders and deliveries.”
Today, more than 44,500 teams across companies like Goldman Sachs, Oath, Spotify and SpotHero have formed on Ritual. More than 50 percent of all orders placed by team members are open to others to join. Team members who often had lunch individually are now sharing lunch time, driving company camaraderie and team unity.
Ritual works with teams and restaurants to make lunchtime ordering, pickup and delivery more convenient in three core ways:
Order ahead food technology: Ritual provides restaurants with turnkey mobile ordering technology, which gives consumers a convenient solution to discover, order and pick up their meals — specifically during lunchtime.
With 3,000 restaurants across ten markets, teams have access to pick-up from local eateries or national chains via a single mobile app.
Social ordering and delivery via Piggyback: Using Ritual’s social ordering and delivery feature, Piggyback, teams can connect and collaborate on lunch orders and pick-up lunch for busy teammates. Restaurants are able to leverage existing customers to effectively act as delivery persons for these orders.
Restaurants on Ritual’s platform experience repeat customer visits and size orders increase up to 4x due to social features, ease of use and transparent pricing structure.
Actionable data for smoother lunch rush: Ritual provides real-time data on store experience, food quality and customer satisfaction metrics so operators can run a better business, which leaves consumers with a smooth ordering and pick-up experience to maximize their lunch breaks.
In addition to providing metrics on their own business, Ritual can help operators benchmark metrics to similar businesses to help operators understand where they are doing better or worse. With actionable insights, operators can often double Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) metrics to keep more customers coming back.
To support the rapid growth, Ritual closed a $70 million Series C round led by Georgian Partners with participation from existing investors Greylock Partners, Insight Ventures, Mistral Venture Partners.
In 2017, Ritual added Tishman Speyer, the leading owner, developer, and manager of premier commercial real estate in top cities around the world, as a Series B strategic investor. Tishman Speyer is scaling Ritual through its global properties, and will help the company continue its strong growth among real estate investors and property managers.
“As part of our workplace amenity program Zo, Ritual creates a sense of community for our tenants, makes their day-to-day lives easier and boosts their productivity, and we’re excited to bring this experience to more Tishman Speyer locations globally,” said Rob Speyer, President and CEO of Tishman Speyer. “We take great pride in the distinctive quality, value and services we offer to our tenants worldwide, and Ritual fits perfectly into our philosophy.”
Ritual is currently available online and via iOS and Android apps in major metro markets, including Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Washington, D.C., and its hometown of Toronto. Focused on densely-populated metros, Ritual plans to expand its offering to Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia and San Diego in the coming months.
“This is a huge market opportunity. Ray and his team are building a great business with a beautiful product that enables merchants to quickly digitize and grow revenues.” said Steve Leightell, Partner, Georgian Partners. “We’re excited to be leading this round and to have the opportunity to partner with Ritual to further accelerate their use of machine learning, artificial intelligence and data science.”
About Ritual
Order ahead app Ritual connects restaurants with customers to offer a simple, time saving tool to place, pay for and pick-up lunch orders for themselves and their workplace teams. The 2017 New/Emerging Technology MAXI Gold Award winner works with more than 3,000 restaurants to serve customers in 10 cities across North America, including Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Washington, D.C., and its hometown of Toronto. Ritual was founded in 2014 and has raised $127.5M in venture funding, with headquarters in San Francisco and Toronto. Learn more at https://ritual.co/.
About Georgian Partners
Georgian Partners is a thesis-driven growth equity firm investing in SaaS-based business software companies exploiting applied artificial intelligence, security first and conversational business. Founded by successful entrepreneurs and technology executives, Georgian Partners leverages our global software expertise to be able to directly impact the success of companies. For more information, visit www.georgianpartners.com.