CloudKitchens
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Ghost kitchens, Food delivery technology |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Founder | Diego Berdakin, Sky Dayton |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Travis Kalanick (CEO), John Curran (CFO) |
| Products | Ghost kitchen facilities, Otter software platform, virtual restaurant brands, automation technologies |
| Owner | Travis Kalanick (majority stakeholder via City Storage Systems) |
Number of employees | 4000+ (2022) |
| Parent | City Storage Systems |
| Website | cloudkitchens |
CloudKitchens is a company headquartered in Los Angeles that specializes in operating ghost kitchens and creating associated technological solutions. Established in 2016 by Diego Berdakin and Sky Dayton, it was subsequently acquired by Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick. After acquiring a majority stake in its parent firm, City Storage Systems, for roughly $150 million in 2018, Kalanick assumed the role of CEO. CloudKitchens offers commercial kitchen spaces tailored to delivery-centric restaurants, including facilities for production kitchens, CPG, meal preparation, and catering services, transforming underused real estate assets while providing software tools to manage online ordering processes.
History
The initial CloudKitchens site was launched in Los Angeles, California. By 2021, the company appointed John Curran, a former Amazon executive, as CFO amid a valuation surge from about $5 billion in 2019 to nearly $15 billion in 2021. Major investments included $400 million from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2019 and an $850 million funding round in 2021 involving investors such as Microsoft.
International growth was driven by acquisitions including London’s FoodStars (2019), Mexico’s Nano, and Colombia’s Cocinas Ocultas. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated expansion due to rising demand for food delivery services. By 2022, CloudKitchens owned approximately 40 properties across 24 cities worldwide, having invested over $130 million and employing upwards of 4,000 staff globally. Operations also extended under local brand names like Kitchen Central in Brazil.
The company maintained a low profile until 2024 when Kalanick unveiled the Internet Food Court initiative aimed at achieving delivery times below 15 minutes through automation technologies, concentrating on densely populated urban zones and workplace districts. At that point, CloudKitchens managed hundreds of kitchen units internationally.
In 2022, rival Kitchen United secured $100 million to compete with CloudKitchens but ultimately exited the sector by late 2023 after selling its real estate holdings.
Ghost kitchen facilities
CloudKitchens develops private kitchen units available for rent within shared spaces outfitted with necessary cooking appliances and utilities. These leased kitchens allow restaurants to focus on delivery operations without incurring the costs of traditional storefronts. Additional services typically encompass refrigeration, upkeep, cleaning, and front-of-house personnel for order collection.
Real Estate
The company purchases and repurposes underutilized properties into kitchen hubs situated in areas with high delivery demand. This approach grants control over facility design, integration of advanced technologies, and potential appreciation of property value. Certain sites feature software integration and robotic automation to lower tenants’ operational expenses.
Otter Software Platform
Otter is CloudKitchens' in-house developed software platform that aggregates delivery orders across multiple channels. It enhances order processing efficiency, operational workflows, and sales reporting for restaurant operators. Initially created for internal deployment, Otter has expanded to serve external clients and accounted for 18% of U.S. food delivery transactions by 2024. The system now includes point-of-sale devices, kitchen display screens, and self-service ordering kiosks.
Additional Initiatives
- Picnic: A workplace dining solution featuring smart food lockers that enable employees to place orders from various restaurants through a single payment.
- Lab 37: A robotics unit focused on creating automated systems for restaurant operations, including the "Bowl Builder," capable of preparing up to 200 meals hourly without human involvement.
- Future Foods: Develops and licenses virtual restaurant concepts to operators both within and beyond CloudKitchens properties. These brands often adopt catchy, unconventional names such as "Excuse My French Toast" and "Send Noods," with Future Foods managing the marketing efforts and food styling. Other distinctive brand names include Egg the F* Out, B*tch Don't Grill My Cheese, Charcootz, LA Breakfast Club, Brooklyn Calzones, Devil's Soul Food, and Phuket I'm Vegan.
- ProFoods: Provides support to companies and restaurant chains in scouting and establishing ideal new locations.
- Launch.co: A startup accelerator partnered with Jason Calacanis aimed at fostering innovation among entrepreneurs in the food delivery sector.
Key Partnerships
CloudKitchens designs ghost kitchen facilities and leases real estate for prominent chains such as Sweetgreen, The Halal Guys, Chick-fil-A, Wendy's, and Burger King.
Advocacy Efforts
CloudKitchens is associated with lobbying activities in the United States through the Digital Restaurant Association (DRA), which was established in 2022 with support from Tusk Holdings, led by Bradley Tusk—an early Uber investor and collaborator of Travis Kalanick. The DRA seeks regulatory reforms affecting the food delivery industry, including mandates for third-party services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub to provide restaurants access to customer data. Additionally, it promotes limits on commission fees charged by these platforms to restaurant partners. Supporters claim these initiatives improve transparency and customer interaction, whereas opponents caution about possible risks to consumer privacy and difficulties faced by smaller businesses lacking comprehensive data security measures.