Dive Brief:

• Sharebite, a platform that enables restaurants to deliver food to corporate clients, has secured $39 million in Series B funding, according to a news release. The company will use the funding to grow and launch new product.
• The company centralizes food ordering and expense management for employees at corporate clients, whether they work in the office or remotely, and works with businesses such as Barclays, Peloton and WeWork. 
• Sharebite, which works with over 4,000 restaurants including chains like Sweetgreen, Chopt and Pret, saw daily order volume increase 30-fold in 2021, as workers returned to offices and major firms sought to improve retention by offering new benefits. 

Dive Insight:

According to a February Gallup poll, about 53% of workers expect to maintain hybrid work, while 24% expect to work exclusively remotely. Sharebite is striving to solve a problem in maintaining employee engagement in this new, largely hybrid environment.   

“Since day one, our technology was purpose-built for companies as an enabling mechanism for maximum employee engagement,” Dilip Rao, Sharebite CEO and co-founder, said in a statement.

Companies are looking to add employee benefits as the labor market remains tight. Food has long been an incentive for workers, and 81% of business leaders believe free meals are the best incentive to get workers to return to the office, according to an ezCater report.

Sharebite isn’t the only company working with corporate clients to streamline employee lunch ordering. DoorDash launched DoorDash for Work in 2020, allowing employers to deliver food to their employees who are working remotely or in the office. Grubhub recently added a corporate pay card that lets employees at companies with a Grubhub Corporate Account order from partner restaurants.

This funding round could allow Sharebite to better compete with those larger companies. The company differentiates itself by centralizing orders for employees whether they’re in the office or at home, with an option to pick up their meal at a “Sharebite Station.” It also provides a curated collection of items from its network of thousands of restaurants. The platform also provides an expense management dashboard, where companies can manage receipts and reimbursements, track group orders and assign allowance limits. Its Sharebite Passport, launched in early 2021, enables companies to equitably provision food benefits across remote and in-person employees.

Restaurant partners may benefit from economies of scale generated by preparing and delivering large quantities of orders placed in advance, according to the release. There is also a charitable component to Sharebite’s operations, as the company partners with non-profits. Each transaction on the platform supports a meal donation from non-profit partners, like City Harvest and Feeding America, to help fight hunger in local communities.