Mark Bouris backs food delivery marketplace ChefPrep in $3 million Seed round

Meal home delivery marketplace ChefPrep has raised $3 million in a Seed round.

The raise was led by Artesian Ventures and Global Founders Capital. Additional backing came from Yellow Brick Road chairman Mark Bouris, Circular co-founder Yaniv Bernstein and Hungry House founder Graeme Horne.

Founded in May last year by Elle Curran and Josh Abulafia, following a $1.25 million angel round. The Sydney startup gives restaurants a platform to supply customers with frozen, ready-made versions of their best selling dishes. The marketplace now has more than 25 partners selling more than 100 different products, and recently expanded into artisan pantry products. Those brands include g Butter Sydney, Salt Meats Cheese,  Delhi “O” Delhi, Bellevue Cottage and Bourke Street Bakery. ChefPrep currently delivers across Sydney, with plans to go national.

The funding will be used to expand the product range, ChefPrep’s network of restaurants and artisan food producers, and add new delivery zones in New South Wales over the next six months. The company hopes to double its team by the end of the year.

Abulafia said they are fortunate to have extremely supportive investors.

“Our angel and seed investors bring deep industry knowledge and expertise, which we have been able to utilise to accelerate our growth and ability to scale,” he said.

“We are very grateful to Artesian, who has supported us since our inception and we are excited to have Global Founders Capital join us on the journey – they have been true partners and are aligned with our vision of growing into a global platform.”

His co-founder Curran, ChefPrep’s CEO, said a national launch is on their drawing board for 2022. 

“In the longer term, our mission is to build a global marketplace that empowers food makers to embrace e-commerce as a complimentary revenue stream to their in house offering, leveraging their existing resources and industry expertise,” she said.

Within the next five years, we plan to launch in overseas markets, democratising access to quality food experiences by connecting food lovers with the best global food makers, no matter where they live.” 

Global Founders Capital APAC partner Melvin Hade said they see the next food commerce trend in Australia as ready-made, premium, restaurant-quality meals for home.

“The value proposition of ChefPrep is clearly a win-win for all stakeholders and the organic progress has been very  encouraging in recent months,” he said.

“More than anything, we are excited to back serial entrepreneurs like Josh and Elle to shape the food commerce space in Australia.”

Yellow Brick Road’s Mark Bouris said: “I have a love of food as it’s a non negotiable staple and easily understood but importantly I back people like Joshua and his team when they identify market gaps and model the last mile or fulfilment piece so elegantly!“