London-based meal-kit delivery unicorn Gousto raises €132.6M at a valuation of €1.5B

London-based Gousto, an online meal-kit manufacturer and retailer that uses AI and automation to provide choice and personalisation, announced that it has raised $150M (approx €132.6M) in a fresh round of funding at a valuation of $1.7B (approx €1.5B).

The company has raised $100M (approx €88.45M) in primary equity capital from investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Additionally, HSBC and Barclays also provided $50M (approx €44.22M) in new debt capital.

Timo Boldt, founder and CEO of Gousto, says, “2022 is set to be another impressive year for Gousto, as we capitalise on the accelerated mega trends driving change in the grocery market: convenience, health, sustainability. This successful raise is further testament to the relevance and appetite for our recipe box solution.” 

The proceeds from this round will be used partly to fund the company’s fifth automated and AI-driven fulfilment centre near Birmingham (Burton-on-Trent). The new investment unlocks 40 per cent more capacity for Gousto, with four other automated fulfilment centres in Essex, Lincolnshire, and Cheshire. 

The UK’s only profitable, unicorn B Corp

Timo Boldt and James Carter, two friends who share a passion for food and cooking, founded Gousto in 2012 to pioneer the recipe box offering in the UK. The company provides all ingredients in their right proportions to cook delicious meals at home while reducing food waste.

The produce is organic, fresh and seasonal. Gousto’s recipes are developed by a team of chefs and tested by all their friends and families first. Users then get to choose the recipes online and every week the selection is updated to make sure there are new recipes. 

The recipes are then delivered right at the customers’ doorstep once a week, whenever they decide to cook. The company works on a subscription model and can be put on hold as per customers’ availability. To date, the platform has delivered over 1 million meals.

Gousto became a certified B Corporation in 2021. A recent survey by environmental services company Foodsteps revealed that dinners from Gousto produce 23 per cent less carbon emissions than equivalent meals from supermarket stores.

Last year, Gousto removed 75.9 tonnes of plastic from its boxes through its Eco Chill Box insulation, which is made with recycled paper. Currently, the company is working towards making all Gousto-branded packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2022.

Offering more choices

Gousto claims to offer more choice than any other recipe box, with over 60 recipes on the menu that change every week. Over one third of them can be customised, by switching proteins for example.

Doubling recipe choice in the past two years, Gousto caters to all cuisines, tastes, and dietary and health requirements, with healthy, convenient, global and family recipes, along with an extended Joe Wicks partnership in 2022.

The company’s differentiation lies in its 200+ tech team members and its focus on data and artificial intelligence, which power all its operations including its automated fulfilment centre in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and enable its customer proposition – the recipe choice, at the lowest price, delivered in the shortest lead time. 

Its intelligent use of data has facilitated the creation of the first recipe box recommendation engine – ‘the Spotify for food’.