NoVA Startup Frolick Raises Venture Funding to Bring No-Fee Meal Delivery to Additional Areas – Starting with a Major Expansion into Washington, DC

RESTON, Va., July 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Frolick, the first meal delivery company offering hot, chef-prepared meals starting at under $10 with no fees or order minimums, announced today that it has raised a pre-seed round of $1.8M to help fund hiring, marketing and geographic expansion. Participants in the round included gategroup as strategic investors and several angels including current and former executives for Delivery Hero and Gopuff. 

Frolick also announced today that it has doubled its service area, expanding its delivery from Reston across the river to Washington, DC. For a map of its new delivery area, click here.

During the pandemic, food delivery demand soared, and people became accustomed to the convenience. Frolick’s founder Jipy Mohanty, a former exec at Europe’s Delivery Hero, was one of them. After ordering meal delivery frequently for months, he became fatigued at the choices and concerned about the cost and lack of nutrition. His research found that many others felt the same way, so he designed a service that combined nutritious meals, prepared by chefs in local commercial kitchens, and delivered for free with no order minimums. He launched Frolick to a group of testers in Northern Virginia in Dec 2021 – word quickly spread and within a few months, Frolick had thousands of customers. 

Mohanty’s goal in developing Frolick was to deliver nutritious, chef-prepared meals for under $15. The menu changes weekly, with entrees starting at under $10. Partnering with local commercial kitchens enabled Frolick to get off the ground very quickly. In an era when incumbent food delivery companies are facing lawsuits over hidden fees and pricing discrepancies, Forage has gone in a completely different direction, with no fees and fair pricing.

Swiss multinational gategroup is also a key Frolick partner, handling meal preparation (the other being Cloud Kitchens, the dark kitchen startup founded by Travis Kalanick). Both gategroup and Cloud Kitchens have a large national presence, paving the way for Frolick’s rapid expansion into additional cities, ensuring quality and consistency of the product without large capital outlays.

“It’s a brilliant concept that requires very little upfront infrastructure cost,” said Maurus Lienhard, President Food Service & Corporate Development at gategroup. “We could see immediately that the demand was there. We are thrilled to partner in this exciting project and are looking forward to working closely with Jipy and the Frolick team to expand the service into additional cities in the coming months.”

“Our belief, especially in this economy, is that meal delivery won’t really take off for the masses until fees are eliminated,” said Frolick’s Mohanty. “Frolick’s reception in NoVA has been very strong, and we’ve had hundreds of requests for service in DC and other cities. Our cost structure gives us a clear path to profitability, and we’re already working on a playbook for national expansion.”

Frolick customers include consumers and businesses who tend to order from Frolick 4-5x a month. Its consumer customers tend to be full-time workers (often with families) who want a break from cooking. Its business customers tend to have up to 150 local employees, and are looking for unique ways to draw people back to the office.

Frolick has developed custom software to manage its logistics and delivery, following many of the same principles as Amazon Prime, including order batching by neighborhood. Drivers are contractors who are paid a minimum of $20/hour and deliver 5-20 orders per trip to optimize efficiency.

“We’ve been paying careful attention to what’s worked and what hasn’t for other food and meal delivery companies,” said Mohanty. “Now we’re ready to take that knowledge forward with a service that’s designed for mass market appeal.”

To learn more about Frolick or sign up for service, visit frolick.co/. 

About Frolick

Frolick is the first food delivery app featuring hot, chef-prepared meals starting at under $10 with no fees or order minimums. As the world’s most affordable food delivery platform, Frolick prepares its meals in local commercial kitchens, using custom logistics and delivery software to maximize efficiency and keep costs low. The company serves consumers looking for nutritious and affordable meal delivery as well as businesses looking to provide new benefits to employees in their offices. Currently serving thousands of customers in the Washington, DC metro area, Frolick has been growing its customer base by 100 percent month over month, with plans to quickly expand to additional US cities in 2022 and beyond. Your first meal is free when you sign up at https://frolick.co/. 

Media contact:
Michelle Faulkner
Big Swing
617-510-6998
[email protected]

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9c9575d9-6b25-48f6-b1d4-0181fdb82eb7