Our Take on Plated’s Journey

We’ve always been driven by a core maxim — both in philosophy and in practice — to invest in the brightest entrepreneurs and their ideas, especially when it means there’s no historic precedent or existing category around those ideas. As early-stage investors, this can yield especially risky bets, but it’s also what we consider proper venture capital and what brings potential for winners.

In February of 2013, we were fortunate enough to meet two founders who wholly exemplified this philosophy with the simple idea of redefining the way people eat. Their idea was indeed novel: delivering healthy, sustainable food that was often fresher than restaurant products and did not have the high costs of real-estate or inventory stocking embedded in the price. But their vision for redefining the way people eat went beyond merely delivering food — at its center was a focus on bringing people back to the kitchen and helping a new generation discover the joys of cooking on their own terms.

Fast forward to today, and we could not be more proud of what Nick, Josh, Elana, and the entire team at Plated have accomplished.

They’ve been trailblazers by executing on their vision and literally delivering mass customization to the food industry with high quality ingredients and a focus on choice; they’ve grown the business from seven to several hundred people and built an amazing culture along the way; they’ve weathered a host of challenges and have sustainably grown by staying focused and grounded in reality; and importantly, today they celebrate another milestone by being acquired by the national grocery chain Albertsons.

We’ve seen first-hand how hard the entire Plated team has worked to reach this point, but we also think it’s just the beginning of the next chapter. With access to hundreds of millions of new customers, expanded operational and financial resources, and invaluable industry expertise from Albertsons, Plated is poised to expand and augment their existing offerings, with the opportunity to provide more choice and high quality ingredients to their loyal customers as well as to Albertsons shoppers and beyond.

We‘re thrilled at how far Plated has come, and we congratulate them on today’s major achievement — we can’t wait to see what’s in store.