There's nothing like fresh-baked bread, but Locale is betting you'll think having that bread delivered to your doorstep is even better.
The Los Gatos startup already delivers locally made artisan bread, gourmet pizzas and farm-fresh produce to customers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Thanks to a new funding round, it plans to expands its specialty food delivery service to San Diego and beyond.
It also plans to allow customers in one of its markets — the Bay Area, say — order food from another market — Los Angeles, maybe — founder Jonathan Friedland said in a blog post.
"In a world full of choice overload, we're confident that Locale will continue providing an amazing, curated food delivery experience," Friedland, who is also Locale's co-CEO, said in the post.
The startup, legally known as Shop Locale Inc., raised its $14 million in a seed deal led by Andreessen Horowitz. The round is its first institutional deal since it participated in Y Combinator's accelerator program last year.
After they graduated from college, Friedland and his co-founder, Christopher Clarke, wanted to do more with their lives than simply embark on corporate careers, Friedland said in the blog post. The pair hit on Locale as a way to help small local food-related businesses expand their geographic reach.
"We both had the itch to do something more impactful and community-oriented," Friedland said in the post.
Read on for more details on Locale's new round and other seed deals from this past week:
Co:Create, Menlo Park, $25 million: Andreessen Horowitz led the round for this provider of a service that helps groups behind non-fungible token, or NFT, projects create their own cryptocurrency tokens. VaynerFund, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital and Amy Wu also invested.
Tenyx Inc., Palo Alto, $15 million: AME Cloud Ventures, Cota Capital, Morado Ventures, Pathbreaker Ventures, Point72 Ventures and StageOne Ventures invested in this developer of voice-based intelligent agents.
Shop Locale Inc. (dba Locale), Los Gatos, $14 million: Andreessen Horowitz led the round for this operator of an online marketplace for freshly-prepared local foods. Y Combinator, Decent Capital, Wave Capital, Devin Wenig, Deborah Liu and Manish Chandra also invested.
Sea Ranch Labs Inc. (dba Highlight), Berkeley, $11 million: Haun Ventures led the round for this developer of community creation software built on blockchain technology and incorporating NFTs that's designed to allow artists and celebrities to connect virtually with fans. SciFi VC, 1kx, A_Capital, Floodgate, Coinbase Ventures, 35 Ventures, Polygon Studios, Mischief VC, DAO Jones and Offline Ventures also participated.
VanGoux Inc. (dba Bubbles), San Francisco, $8.5 million: Khosla Ventures, Craft Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, 468 Ventures and Bain Capital invested in this developer of work collaboration software that allows users to exchange video, text messages and screenshots.
Meld Universal Inc., Los Altos, $8 million: Coatue Management led the round for this provider of software that helps developers link their apps to financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.
Pico MES Inc., Redwood City, $6.75 million: Congruent Ventures led the round for this provider of software for factories. Union Labs, Lemnos Labs, SE Ventures and Schneider Electric also invested.
Hashcut Inc. (dba Sizzle.gg), Sunnyvale, $5 million: White Star Capital led the round for this provider of software that automatically creates video highlights for video game streamers and from esports competitions. Progression Fund, Eterna Capital, Play Ventures, Mindset Ventures and Xoogler Ventures also participated.
Socket Inc., Stanford, $4.6 million: Unusual Ventures, Village Global and South Park Commons invested in this provider of cybersecurity software that scrutinizes open source code.
