Blue Apron Raises $135 Million In Series D, Now Valued At Over $2 Billion

Blue Apron had a successful fundraiser, to the point where it shot its value over $2 billion.

According to the Business Insider, Blue Apron took on the Series D fundraising, says CEO Matt Salzberg, “to continue to scale what we do and help people get farm-fresh produce at better prices than is available anywhere else,” he says. “We’re still a young company but we’ve seen extremely strong demand for what we do.”

The new funds will be used to invest in Blue Apron’s supply chain, farming, and fulfillment relationships.

Fidelity Management and Research Company led this round of fundraising, accompanied by previous investors, such as BoxGroup, Bessemer Venture Partners, Stripes Group, First Round, and Jason Finger, the founder and former CEO of Seamless. Blue Apron began operations in 2012.

Though there are other recipe shipping companies, such as Hello Fresh, Blue Apron is the only one valued at $2 billion dollars. This puts Blue Apron in the “unicorn” category, meaning the company holds a value of over $1 billion or more. There are only 100 companies that currently could be considered unicorns.

Salzberg says that Blue Apron charges approximately $10 per meal, and Blue Apron makes over 3 million meals every month. Blue Apron now operates two distribution centers with over 1,800 employees, and thousands of customers.

The New York Business Journal is reporting that Blue Apron is altering the way the average consumer is buying and consuming perishable goods, something Salzberg is proud of.

“We’re very excited. One of the fundamental opportunities that we have is we’re able to take a lot of links out of the supply chain,” Salzberg told the New York Business Journal in a phone interview. “We can plan [customer meals] all the way back to the farm and take a lot of waste out of the system.”

There are two ways that Blue Apron eliminates waste. First, being a subscription service, Blue Apron has a better count of what they will need to fulfill customer orders, whereas a store has no such count, essentially buying blind. Secondly, since portions are measured exactly for the recipes, there is no leftover material that may need to be thrown out later on.

Salzberg also states that customers are shifting to easier-to-prepare, healthier eating options. “Interest in food is higher than it’s ever been, culinary skill levels are lower than they have ever been in this country,” Salzberg said. “People have a real genuine interest in doing things healthy, getting away from their digital lives where they’re spending their whole day in front of a computer screen.”

With Blue Apron, you have the opportunity to purchase up to three meals a week, which can serve 2, 4, or 6 persons. The customer then receives a box weekly with preportioned ingredients and recipe cards showing customers how to prepare the meals.

[Image courtesy of Blue Apron]