CloudKitchens

In 2018, Travis Kalanick purchased a controlling stake in City Storage Systems LLC, founded by Diego Berdakin and Sky Dayton,[5] for $150 million, which operates as the parent company of CloudKitchens and is operated by Berdakin and Barak Diskin.[7][8] This parent company arrangement allows CloudKitchens to operate as a shell company and to keep a level of secrecy or stealth to the startup.[9][8][10][11]

In January 2019, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, invested $400 million in the startup's Series A round. By that time, Travis Kalanick had invested $300 million in the company; he sold $1.4 billion of his Uber stock by May 2019.[12][13] Sources noted Kalanick's ties to Saudi Arabia, which includes Kalanick serving on an advisory board for Neom, Saudi Arabia's plan to build a futuristic "mega city" in the desert.[14][15][16][13]

In November 2021, CloudKitchens raised another $850 million in a funding round, valuing the company at $15 billion.[17] Investors included Microsoft, which previously backed Kalanick's Uber.[18]

In 2022, the company was sued by three of its operators for allegedly violating labor laws and deceptive business practices.[19] According to a report published by Business Insider, over 70% of CloudKitchens' operators left the company within a year.[20] It was also alleged by partners that many facilities lacked property security and food safety measures.[21][22][23] The company closed down sites in New York and Tennessee, cut back on new building purchases, and conducted layoffs, according to a Financial Times report from September 2023.[24]

A ghost kitchen (or "dark kitchen"[12]) allows the kitchen space to operate as a commissary to others, which lets costs be shared and can exist in lower-overhead spaces than a standard restaurant.[25][26][27] Ghost kitchen partners include:

• Sweetgreen[25]
• The Halal Guys[16]
• Fat Sal's Deli[16]
• Chick-fil-A[8]
• Wendy's[8]
• Burger King[8]

CloudKitchens created Otter, a food order platform, which consolidates orders from various platforms (such as Uber Eats, Postmates, Caviar, DoorDash) for kitchens.[28][29]

In April 2020, CloudKitchens launched—and closed—an experiment called the "Internet Food Court" in Koreatown, Los Angeles, with retro 8-bit. The Internet Food Court allowed families to order delivery from 100 virtual restaurants.[1]

CloudKitchens' virtual restaurant division is named Future Foods.[30][31] Virtual restaurant brands (or "pseudo-restaurants"[32]) are the opposite of a ghost kitchen: they allow existing restaurants to deliver food with the Future Foods brands.[25] Future Foods handles marketing including food photography.[33]

These Future Foods brand orders are organized for a restaurateur using the Otter order system.[29]

It acquired FoodStars BH Ltd, which opened in 2015.[10][32]

Bradley Tusk, American businessman and politician, provides political lobbying for the company.[8]

• Official website