San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 26, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chefs Feed, the inside connection to the best dishes and food culture presented by the world's top chefs, today announced it has raised a $4 million Series A round. Led by ARTIS Ventures, the round was also funded by Structure Capital, Haas Portman and Subtraction Capital, as well as notable individual investors. Chefs Feed will leverage the new capital to prepare the company for its next phase of growth including, expanding its development team, executing new outreach campaigns, extending to more cities, and debuting new products, all within the calendar year.
In the past 12 months, Chefs Feed's mobile user base grew by 425 percent, and its web views tracked in the millions, with higher engagement in Q4 than the previous three quarters combined. In addition to user growth, Chefs Feed added CEO Rich Maggiotto (Zinio, AOL) and CRO Sandy Shanman (Quattro/iAds, Advertising.com) to its team while closing distribution and promotional deals with high-profile brands, including: Uber, Urbanspoon, Virgin America, Complex Media, Foursquare, Outside Lands, Red Bull, Food & Wine, ABC's The Taste, American Lamb Board, Brugal Rum, Jackson Family Winery, Moretti, Samsung and Schweppes.
"We have made great strides this year across the business from growing our younger-leaning, mobile savvy users to aligning with some tremendous, forward-thinking brands," said Rich Maggiotto, CEO at Chefs Feed. "We're intent on being the antithesis of Yelp for restaurants and food discovery. We want to help chefs and their restaurants regain the ability to shape the narrative supporting their brand and food. We want to help them put the right butts in the right seats. We are moving the industry forward."
"Chefs Feed understands what the restaurant industry is all about, and how much heart and soul goes into owning and running a great establishment," said Stuart Peterson, co-founder and senior partner at ARTIS Ventures. "The company provides the industry with tools to build and amplify their own brand, especially on mobile devices. As smartphones become our constant connection to the world, we like that Chefs Feed is positioned to be the credible source for what's good among the rabble that has come to overwhelm food media."
Download the app on iTunes or Android or visit Chefs Feed's website.
ABOUT CHEFS FEED
Chefs Feed, headquartered in San Francisco, is a mission-driven food media and technology platform, with authoritative and original perspectives on food and urban lifestyle, award-winning consumer products, and publishing technologies serving the food and restaurant industry. Chefs Feed was born to create a dialogue between the world's best chefs and tastemakers and growing, mobile-savvy audiences -- a new kind of eater exhausted with bored consensus, underserved by traditional media, and desperate for authenticity, relevance, and trust. For the consumer, Chefs Feed is the ultimate resource for where to eat and what to order. For the industry, Chefs Feed allows chefs and restaurateurs to more directly transact with and foster loyalty among their community of existing and potential diners on mobile devices.
For more information, visit www.chefsfeed.com, www.facebook.com/chefsfeed, https://instagram.com/chefsfeed or follow @chefsfeed on Twitter. Viewers can subscribe to the Chefs Feed YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/chefsfeed.