Slice, a startup that assists independent pizzerias build an online business, has actually raised another $40 million in Series D financing.
The round was led by Cross Creek, with participation from KKR, GGV Capital and Main Ventures, as well as Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo and former COO Adam Bain (through their firm 01 Advisors).
Last spring, the startup announced a $43 million Series C. Why not raise more cash this time? Founder and CEO Ilir Sela explained this as “a quick round” to get Costolo and Bain on-board as financiers. He likewise suggested there might be extra fundraising conversations in the not-too-distant future.
“Slice has actually become the leader in powering these types of small businesses that have been serving our neighborhoods for decades,” Bain stated in a statement. “We eagerly anticipate working with Ilir and the incredible team at Slice to wed our considerable operating and business-scaling experience with Slice’s concentrate on making it possible for financial growth in this classification.”
Slice has built a mobile app and site for buying from local pizzerias, but it also supplies tools so they can construct their own sites, run marketing campaigns, improve their seo and more. Slice just charges those pizzerias a fixed $2.25 per order, and last fall it even removed the cost for orders under $10.
The business continues to broaden its services and products with the recent launch of a point-of-sale system for pizzerias called Slice Register, along with a cross-pizzeria commitment program called Slice Rewards. A few of this might sound a bit specific niche– a POS system, just for pizzerias?– however when I brought this up with Sela, he responded, “I enjoy it when people say that, since then they continue to avoid of the method.”
Slice already has 15,000 pizzerias on the platform, with plans to increase that number to 20,000 at the end of the year. He added that although the existing addressable market includes 57,000 independent and little chain U.S. shops, with the Slice Speed up program (where the start-up provides choose pizzerias with $15,000 worth of technology and services) “there could be 100,000 in the U.S.”
“With Accelerate, we’re taking ineffective pizza shops who are primarily offline and helping them recognize their vision for their brand name,” he continued. That might indicate improving an existing location, or it might mean introducing brand-new ones. He stated the brand-new program has actually currently helped to revamp Pizza Mia in Staten Island and will work with Crown Heights-based Billy’s Pizza & & Pasta to open a 2nd location.
“I certainly believe that long term, there’s a big question whether our very distinct design could be used to other verticals,” he said. “I believe it can, however it would be a mistake to move into those verticals today, because of the opportunity that it exists in pizza.
Article curated by RJ Shara from Source. RJ Shara is a Bay Area Radio Host (Radio Jockey) who talks about the startup ecosystem – entrepreneurs, investments, policies and more on her show The Silicon Dreams. The show streams on Radio Zindagi 1170AM on Mondays from 3.30 PM to 4 PM.
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