Los Angeles-headquartered start-up CloudKitchens has shut its operations in India. According to a YourStory report, the Travis Kalanick-led start-up failed to generate adequate revenue for three years.
After being forced out of Uber, Kalanick acquired a significant stake in CloudKitchens in 2018. He invested $150 million in the company, which was founded by Diego Berdakin. In 2020, CloudKitchen entered India and offered kitchen infrastructure and services in both online and offline modes with the brand name, KitchenPlus.
The flagship company had 80 cloud kitchens in India. In the last week of December, it fired its entire workforce of around 40 staff.
“The management informed us over a video call in December and terminated our employment contracts effective immediately,” an employee, who lost his job in December, told YourStory.
The former Uber CEO-led start-up bagged an $850 million investment in 2021. Along with other investors, tech giant Microsoft also participated in the round and invested a significant amount in the company.
In India, CloudKitechens completed with Indian food tech unicorns Swiggy and Zomato.
Last year, Zomato announced that it would double down on kitchen operators that run cloud kitchens in the country. On the other hand, Swiggy, the food tech decacorn and its competitor announced the abolition of its cloud kitchen business ahead of its initial public offer (IPO).
“The biggest problems for restaurants are real estate and labour. That’s exactly what it was trying to solve. The trouble was its long gestation period as with most infrastructure-heavy businesses,” a source aware of the development told the Economic Times (ET).