This founder went from scooping ice cream to running a $250 million startup that caters lunch for Salesforce, Yelp, and Dropbox — here's how he did it

pulse

May 1, 2018 8:07 PM

ZeroCater takes care of the logistics of office catering. Founder and CEO Arram Sabeti got the idea while working as an office manager at a tech startup, where he was charged with ordering lunch for the team.

ZeroCater, a startup based in San Francisco, takes care of the logistics of office catering for companies including Salesforce, Yelp, and Dropbox.
Before he became ZeroCater's CEO and founder, Arram Sabeti sold his car and moved to San Francisco with the single goal of starting a company.
A job as an office manager showed Sabeti that catering is the most stressful part of office operations, which sparked the idea for ZeroCater.
The company just announced it's raised $12 million in a Series B round of funding and is eyeing a national expansion in 2018.

ZeroCater, a startup based in San Francisco, makes lunch magically appear at startups and corporate campuses from Los Angeles to New York. It takes care of the logistics of office catering by being the middleman between customers and its network of over 500 restaurants.

Before founder Arram

ZeroCater generated revenue on day one. The company charges a small service fee to the customer and takes a percentage of the order from the food provider. After the company raised $1.5 million through Y Combinator in 2011,

Today, the company has passed a quarter billion in sales to date and reportedly has served "millions of meals" to employees of Salesforce, Yelp, Dropbox, Fandango, Indeed, and Venmo. The San Francisco Bay Area is the largest market, though ZeroCater also serves companies in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, and Washington, DC, with more major cities in the pipeline in 2018.

On Tuesday, ZeroCater dropped that it's raised $12 million in a Series B round of funding led by Cleveland Avenue LLC, with participation from Romulus Capital and Struck Capital.

Sabeti describes his new goal as providing "every calorie in the building."

Last summer, ZeroCater rolled out a snacks offering — curating and delivering office snacks and beverages to companies and even setting up refrigerators and shelving on request.

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