Wonder: Our Time to Scale

In January 2023, we gave ourselves less than a year to prove out the new Wonder model, setting several ambitious goals: 

1. Serve all 30 of our restaurants from a single location with an under-30-minute average order-to-eat time
2. Achieve and maintain high customer satisfaction with a 60+ Net Promoter Score
3. All the while, delivering attractive unit-level profitability. 

Just over a year later, we’ve resoundingly met and exceeded this challenge.

We then pushed further with the goal of achieving these metrics while opening 10 locations from a cold start in 12 months. We opened our first Wonder location on the Upper West Side of Manhattan weeks later and also met this goal, with 11 locations now open across three states in the Northeast.

As someone who is typically focused on the future, it’s hard not to look back at this strategic transformation and all that Wonder has accomplished within the past year with pride. We are clearly on our way to building the super app for mealtime and fulfilling our mission of making great food more accessible. 

Within the past 12 months alone, Wonder has: 

• Expanded brick and mortar locations across New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
• Hired a world-class leadership team 
• Acquired Blue Apron, the pioneer of the meal kit industry in the United States   
• Partnered with Walmart, opening our first storefront in Quakertown, PA, and with plans for two more in Teterboro and Ledgewood, NJ this year
• Developed 350+ new menu items across 30 restaurants – exclusively on Wonder – with our world-class culinary team and chef and restaurant partners
• Expanded our assortment of “fast fine” restaurants with world-renowned chefs such as Marcus Samuelsson and José Andrés, who joined the Wonder Board

After a whirlwind year, today we’re incredibly excited to announce that Wonder has raised $700M in capital to further our mission and expansion. We had participation from all major existing shareholders, led by NEA, GV, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Forerunner, Alpine and Harmony, as well as further investment from Watar Partners. I am also personally investing $100M in this round.

New investors to this raise include Dragoneer, Jefferies, Red & Blue Ventures, CAZ Investments, Kuvare Insurance and Fubon Ventures. We’re also grateful for our strategic investors in this fundraise, including existing investor Amex Ventures, and Nestle’s previously announced strategic investment. 

With our Vision, Capital and People (VCP) plan locked in, our focus is now fully on execution as we scale Wonder.  

More specifically, we plan to use this latest raise to continue driving these efforts across three distinct levers: expansion, research and development, and driving unit economics. 

First, we will accelerate the expansion of our physical retail locations, with plans to grow from our current base of 11 locations to 35 by the end of 2024 and 90 by the end of 2025. We’re excited to bring Wonder to more communities throughout the Northeast.

Second, we will continue driving culinary innovation by aggressively investing in research and development, including faster cook times, software enhancements, new menu items, new chefs and iconic restaurant partnerships. Customers love features like multi-restaurant ordering and we’ll have many exciting new products and partnerships to talk about soon.

And finally, we’ll continue to invest in proprietary technology to drive operational efficiencies across Wonder’s vertically-integrated system: back-end technology to drive down food waste; next gen kitchen designs to improve throughput and consistency; and an enhanced delivery network that will ensure that couriers – and, more importantly, customers’ orders – never wait.  

Wonder’s continued growth would not have been possible without the incredible team on the ground in each of our locations, bringing Wonder to life for our customers. I want to recognize our world-class team and trusted partners and investors who fuel our vision of revolutionizing the way people eat. Thank you to Wonder’s leadership team as well as the Wonder Board, who have provided constant guidance and support every step of the way. And an extra special thank you to all of our amazing customers and the neighborhoods they live in for being so welcoming.

We’ve learned so much over the past year, and this round of capital is a show of confidence in what our team is creating: the super app of mealtime.