Goldbely Debuts An App That Lets You Order Gourmet, Regional Cuisine From Anywhere In The U.S.

Goldbely, the Y Combinator-backed startup that lets you order gourmet foods from around the U.S. is now on mobile. The company just launched its first app with Goldbely for iOS, which also includes a newly added next-day shipping feature for getting its tasty treats more quickly than before – whether that’s a real Philly cheesesteak, deep dish pizza from Chicago, Maryland crab cakes or anything else.

The app lets you browse collections like “Eats from NYC” or “The Best from the Midwest,” add items to a cart and indicate a preferred delivery date. Note that the luxury of gourmet food shipped on demand does not come cheap. A Chicago pizza is shown for $59, a Key Lime pie is $69, a pastrami sandwich for two is $60, and so on.

Founded in 2013, the idea with Goldbely is to allow anyone to experience the best of an area’s local cuisine, while restaurants get to increase their distribution. They may charge extra for their items to include the special shipping preparations they have to make, like flash-freezing or using dry ice, for example. Goldbely then takes a cut of the sales for itself.

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Last fall, the startup raised $3 million from Intel Capital and others to expand its operations, and further carve out its niche. While today, there are a number of services that deliver meals on-demand, they are mainly focused around serving a local market’s immediate needs for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Goldbely, meanwhile, is focused around bringing you speciality foods from other cities, while also not necessarily in the “gifts” market where it would otherwise compete with online flower shops who deliver chocolates or fruits, or gift basket purveyors like Harry & David, for example.

The company likes to partner with restaurants which have already been shipping foods, though not necessarily at scale, because they already have some infrastructure set up around packaging and shipping. Still, it’s a challenging space to enter as it’s difficult to deliver gourmet food at a fast pace while scaling a business quickly and maintaining quality, all the while trying to capture the market before a competitor.

But Goldbely co-founder Joe Ariel at least brings a lot of food industry experience to the startup, having previously served as CEO at Delivery.com and CEO and founder of Eats.com (acquired by Delivery.com in 2009). That makes this his third run at leading a food-focused company.

On average, orders are around $70+, and 80% of users are outside the top 10 U.S. markets, the company tells us. Goldbely revenue is also growing at 500% year-over-year, and it expects to reach profitability by December.