It’s been more than two years since I last wrote about Cater2.me, a service that connects local food vendors with companies in need of catering. Sounds like the startup has been busy since then — co-founder Zach Yungst told me that it has now served 5 million meals total, and that it’s launching in four new cities, bringing the total to 10.
Cater2.me’s goal is to deliver a more varied, tasty catering experience by tapping into the varied culinary world you find in many cities. The company customers just enter the basics of how many people they’re feeding, dietary restrictions, and when they need food — Cater2.me handles the rest of the logistics, making sure customers get deliveries from a rotating list of providers.
In San Francisco, at least, that approach attracted the business of a number of startups. (The TechCrunch HQ in San Francisco, however, has been fed by some competing services, including ZeroCater and Zesty.)
Five million meals is a big number, if a bit hard to wrap your head around. For a point of comparison, back in summer 2012, Cater2.me said it had served about 800,000 of ’em. Yungst also told me the company is now serving “in the five figure range daily” (so, tens of thousands of meals a day). It employs more than 65 people, which is particularly impressive for a company that hasn’t raised any outside funding.
Oh, and the new markets are Seattle, LA, Houston, and Denver/Boulder. (In addition to SF, Cater2.me was already available in New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, and Austin.) The company is currently looking for beta customers who can offer feedback as the network of food vendors gets built out in each city, with plans to launch fully in those four locations before the end of the year.