Dive Brief:

• Deliverect, a tech company that connects delivery companies directly to restaurants' point-of-sale systems, has raised $65 million in a Series C funding round from DST Global Partners and Redpoint Ventures, among other investors. This news comes on the heels of the company's $18 million funding round last year.
• The company has processed more than 30 million orders in the past year, averaging more than 1 million orders per week — a nearly 750% increase year-over-year, according to a press release. The growth Deliverect has experienced in the past year is estimated to equate to more than $1 billion in order value.  
• Deliverect said it will use the funding to "continue scaling and helping customers to go online even faster than before by providing them with reliable technology to easily manage digital orders, including delivery, take-out and in-house dining apps." The funding will also fuel R&D and product development, better establish its position in the U.S. and continue its international expansion.

Dive Insight:

Deliverect's growth throughout the past year is impressive, but the Belgian startup has plenty of U.S. competition in this growing space, including Ordermark, Chowly and newly public Olo, which had a $450 million initial public offering.

All of these companies work to facilitate and streamline digital orders so restaurant employees don't have to manually manage multiple tablets and systems from multiple delivery providers.

This is a critical need as third-party delivery is experiencing a triple-digit growth spurt, driven by dining room closures throughout the pandemic and consumers seeking convenience. Delivery orders increased 137% in 2020 versus a year ago, The NPD Group reports. Several chains have added third-party partners to keep up with demand, which could complicate operational fulfillment even further. Deliverect's solution, however, could solve for those challenges at its more than 10,000 restaurants, which include Taco Bell, KFC and Chipotle locations.

Deliverect also works with independent restaurants and is focusing on helping more such restaurants adopt online ordering — another critical need for survival in the restaurant space as the pandemic shifted consumer behaviors toward digital. Market research company Incisiv expects that digital sales will make up 54% of limited-service and quick-service business by 2025. This represents a 70% increase over pre-pandemic estimates.

According to Deliverect, streamlining these order processes increases revenues by 25% and decreases order failures by up to 80% for customers, the company claims in the press release.

"Post-COVID, I can tell you that online sales accelerated even further, and with Deliverect, the time that each rider waits for their order at the restaurant has decreased. We've also seen a substantial decrease in the number of incidents, reducing both missing and incorrect orders," João Almeida, director, M&A and Commercial Finance for KFC Western Europe, said in a statement.