Four months after closing a $4 million seed round, Denver-based food tech startup bitewell has moved its headquarters.
Bitewell relocated on Sept. 1 to The Hub North, an eight-story office building in Denver’s River North Art District. The new 14,000-square-foot space spans the entire fourth floor and is nearly 15 times larger than bitewell’s previous 950-square-foot office at Taxi by Zepplin.
“We were just busting at the seams in our old space,” said Samantha Citro Alexander, CEO and co-founder of bitewell.
The startup currently has 20 employees, all of whom are now in the office three days a week.
Bitewell signed a three-year lease at The Hub North and has the option to expand as needed. The new space can hold 75 employees, a number Citro Alexander expects to reach in the next 18 months. (Bitewell is currently hiring six people, including account managers, full-stack and back-end developers and a data engineer.)
The company originally was looking for a 4,000 to 5,000-square-foot office space but Citro Alexander thought the team would outgrow the space in a year.
“We decided to just make a bet [and] use the space for revenue-generating activity,” she said. “The building ownership group was amazing and really understood that we’re in growth mode and was willing to take a bet on too.”
JLL’s Guy Lachman and Trevor Curtis represented bitewell in this lease agreement. The landlord was represented by JLL’s James Roupp, Julie Rhoades and Maddy Stevenson. Bitewell also worked with CultureX and Project X Office to design and furnish the place.
Bitewell also wanted space to hold events. About 33% of the office will be used for events that can accommodate up to 100 people. This includes a section with stadium seating for live food demonstrations and other spectator viewing events.
Citro Alexander said bitewell has seen success and an increase in lead generation when it shows people who the company is and what it does. It received 105 leads this year from a conference Citro Alexander spoke at and a happy hour the company hosted.
To continue showcasing its product, bitewell’s new headquarters will also operate as an innovation lab and allow visitors to test its platform.
The bitewell platform takes a user’s dietary restrictions and health history and helps them find healthy food that fits their diet. Each item it recommends, whether it’s take-out from a nearby restaurant or an item that can be delivered to one’s house, is rated on a scale of one to 10. A 10 indicates items that best fit a user’s needs and goals.
Office visitors will use an iPad to sign in, fill out their profiles and catalogue the food they eat that day. The office kitchen will be stocked with healthy food and drinks and use geofencing to show users their individual food scores for each product in the area.
At the end of the day, visitors will walk away with information about how the food they ate on their visit impacts their diet.
“Our goal is to transform healthcare from a sick care system to a well-care system with a focus on food-as-medicine,” Citro Alexander said in a statement. “Our new headquarters will be a functional case study that showcases how the bitewell mission can come to life inside any company and any facility.”
Bitewell’s new office also has a Wellness Lab for employee preventative health care. This large room will also serve as a conference room for staff and a workshop space for bitewell and its partners.
In addition to Bitewell, The Hub North houses advisory firm Riveron’s Denver team and architect firm KTGY’s local team.
The Hub North sold for $40.5 million to real estate investment firm Eagle Point Capital Partners in 2021.
