How to Turn Home Cooking Into a $273 Million Tech Startup
- AirKitchen joins food delivery market strewn with failures
- Startup battling local services of giants Baidu, Alibaba
Tang Wanli.
Source: AirKitchenThis article is for subscribers only.
Aromas of fresh cooked meals wafting through his Beijing neighbors’ doors inspired Tang Wanli to take on the crowded food delivery market with yet another startup.
AirKitchen, founded in 2014, has already notched a $273 million valuation and is on the hunt for more funding to expand beyond its current base of 20,000 active kitchens across six Chinese cities. Targeting the country’s millions of time poor and one-person households, many like him living away from family in distant provinces, he is counting on the appeal of home cooking to defy a shakeout.