Taster runs dozens of delivery-only restaurants and kitchens listed on platforms such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats, focusing on five street food–inspired concepts. The startup has opened kitchens across 40 cities and built its own Android and iOS delivery app while continuing to appear on third-party platforms. In Paris, Taster is the third-largest restaurant group on Deliveroo behind McDonald’s and Burger King, representing more than 5,000 meals per day. The company says newly launched partner restaurants can expect €4,000–€6,000 in revenue during the first week. After operating its own kitchens, Taster plans to partner with existing restaurants by providing native brands, menus and tech tools. By 2025 it aims to operate in 1,000 cities using this partnership model. Taster creates native, delivery-only restaurant brands and operates kitchens without dining rooms for food-delivery platforms. The company has launched three brands — Mission Saigon, O Ke Kai and Out-Fry — and runs multiple addresses in the same city. It has delivered 400,000 meals across Paris, London and Madrid and employs 115 full-time staff, including 100 kitchen employees. Taster applies trend prediction to order the right amount of food for each day. With the new funding it plans to launch three new brands and open more kitchens, scaling by relying on third-party real estate partners such as CloudKitchens. By focusing on branding and cooking while outsourcing deliveries and real estate, Taster aims to scale rapidly and compete with traditional restaurants. Taster is a French startup that creates delivery-only restaurants (no dining space) designed to sell through platforms such as Deliveroo, UberEats and Glovo. The company builds and controls its own menus and kitchens rather than partnering with existing restaurants, and has rolled out multiple branded virtual restaurants including Mission Saigon, O Ke Kai and Out Fry across Paris, Madrid and Lille. Its model prioritizes low real-estate and staffing costs by avoiding large storefronts and outsourcing deliveries to the platforms. Taster has been aggressive in opening new virtual restaurants to scale rapidly on third-party marketplaces. That reliance on Deliveroo, UberEats and Glovo creates operational risk should platform rules change or if traditional restaurants push back. The article reports a recent $4 million funding round but provides no financial operating metrics such as revenue or user counts.

Total raised

$49M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Apr 2021