GiftAMeal hired two key workers to execute on an expansion plan that CEO Andrew Glantz says he’s been working on since early-summer, following a partnership with Lion’s Choice that opened the Kansas City market and preceded $500K in funding.
Andrew Glantz, GiftAMeal CEO
“With the fundraise that we closed we’re looking at how we can expand nationally,” Glantz told the 4thEst8. “We’re seeing we can work with mid-size chains like Lion’s Choice, and we’re bringing in Albano to see how we can expand with chain restaurants.”
Hired are:
- Albano Latfi, Chief Growth Officer (securing chain restaurant partners)
- Jamie Placht, KC Restaurant Relationship Manager (KC area restaurant outreach).
Placht hit the ground running in KC by landing Mickey’s Hideaway and Cliff’s Taphouse.
“Those two restaurants last month were both in our top 10 for ‘most photo’s taken’,” said Glantz, noting that chain restaurant expansion gets GiftAMeal into different cities but the plan must include “expanding by best servicing these ‘mom and pop’ restaurants.”
GiftAMeal is a for-profit marketing company with a socially conscious mission. Through it’s free mobile app users take a photo of their order at a GiftAMeal partner restaurant. For every post to social media, GiftAMeal makes a donation to a local food bank to cover a meal for someone in need. GiftAMeal partners pay a monthly subscription, partly for the marketing aspect of the service and partly to support the food bank effort.
Glanz claims GiftAMeal has 275 restaurant partners and 44,000 app users, providing nearly a million meals to those in need. GiftAMeal picked up $100,000 in a non-dilutive follow-on investment from Arch Grants, concurrent with a $400,000 angel round this spring. Since the company got its start in 2014 it has had four seed rounds with the total raised (counting grants) topping $769,000 according to CrunchBase, where investors are identified as Capital Innovators, Skandalaris Center, Arch Grants and private investors.
Links:
On the 4thEst8:
