“There’s going to be a little big bang,” says Kevin Kock, one of Lanch’s three founders. The food creator tech start-up quietly and secretly positioned itself last year. On June 1, 2023, it opened a total of 70 delivery restaurants in one fell swoop throughout Germany.
And the founders expect a huge rush within the first few days. “If everyone wants to order now, it’s possible that the resources will be used up prematurely,” says Kock. In any case, the founders are convinced of their contemporary concept.
Here’s how it works: Lanch is a platform that wants to enable well-known creators – i.e. YouTubers, musicians or other influencers – to open their own delivery restaurant chain. And without any gastro experience.
According to its own statements, the start-up has been working on an adaptable concept for almost a year; set up their own software and started looking for partner restaurants, says co-founder and CEO Nono Konopka.
The menus are developed together with the creators and then finalized by a professional master chef and adapted for delivery. The partner restaurants should then cook the respective menus exactly as Lanch tells them to.
To do this, they are supplied with the respective ingredients several times a week, says Konopka. Quality managers should check the correct implementation on site. This should make it possible to offer the Creator Food across the country in one fell swoop.
Influencers open their own delivery restaurant chain
They start it off well-known YouTubers Knossi and Trymacs. From June 1st, a total of 70 partners will be delivering the creator’s own pizzas under the “Happy Slice” brand. You can easily order the “happy pieces of pizza” using one of the common delivery apps, Lieferando, Wolt or Uber Eats.
In addition, there should be an app for every Creator Food brand, which should make the whole thing a “digital experience”, as Konopka says. The community of the respective brand faces can participate there: give feedback, request dishes or win meetings with the creators.
“This very close exchange is what makes the Creator Economy what it is and what makes it so successful,” says Kock. And others can benefit from that too.
“We see a win-win situation in the concept,” says Konopka. Many restaurants would find it difficult to assert themselves in metropolitan areas. At the same time, large creators in particular are increasingly looking for ways to use and further expand their personal brand.
“We connect these two parties with each other and everyone can benefit,” says Konopka and is sure that this idea will work: “Because we are the first in Europe to go this route, we have a clear advantage.”
Lanch’s investors
According to Lanch, it has collected 2.5 million euros in a seed round so far. The list of investors includes a whole range of celebrities: In addition to the brand faces Knossi (Jens Knossala) and Trymacs (Maximilan Stemmler) themselves, there are also well-known founders such as Jochen Engert (Flixbus), Stephan Weich (message in a bottle) and “the founders and decision-makers of all delivery platforms”, as Konopka says.
Personalities from the fields of rap and sports also belonged to the ranks of business angels. According to this, the soccer world champion duo Mario Götze and André Schürrle were among those invested.
At first glance, the sum seems small when you consider what Lanch claims to have created in the past few months. The concept not only includes recipes: the partner restaurants were also equipped with special equipment, says Kock. Each participating restaurant received a standardized pizza oven for the production of Happy Slice.
“The fundraising was not a big challenge,” says Kock. “We could have raised fourfold from the start.” But that wasn’t necessary because the concept is so efficient. “We make a profit on the first pizza that sells,” he says.
The costs are also low because Lanch relies on existing restaurants and does not build the shops from scratch. “We don’t have to waste resources by building new kitchens because there is an existing infrastructure,” says Kock.
Nevertheless, the start-up is planning at least one further round of financing: “In order to then start in Europe.”
The next brand is in the starting blocks
Before the expansion, however, brand number two should first follow: Loco Chicken by rapper Luciano should open in late summer, reveal Kock and Konopka in an interview with “Gründerszene”. More than 300 other potential partner restaurants are ready. “It’s basically a waiting list,” says Konopka.
The selection process is time-consuming and complex. Only one in four restaurants meets the high standards of the team. The quality of their future brands is particularly important to them.
“We don’t just want to be the next hype,” says Kock. The aim is to offer “really good food delivery” that also works without the reach and familiar faces of the creators.
Nevertheless, nothing is left to chance. Happy Slice starts – in true Creator fashion – colorful and with a bang. This includes a bus full of extroverts touring Germany at the weekend to distribute free pizza.
Knossi and Trymacs would also have invited some friends for this. Well-known German musicians should also be there, say the founders. Welcome to the new world of creators.
About the founders of Lanch
The founding team consisting of Jonas Meynert, Kevin Kock, Dominic Kluge and Nono Konopka already has some founding experience. Kock was involved in setting up the virtual kitchen start-up Honest Food, which started in 2019 DeliveryHero was sold.
CEO Konopka has also founded several companies in the past and is an active business angel. One of his last projects, Biking Borders, was endorsed by Ashton Kutcher and eventually bought by Netflix.
Through the Berlin start-up ecosystem, he also got to know CRO Kevin Kock and COO Jonas Meynert, who in the past accompanied the development of the mobility companies Circ and Dance. Dominic Kluge takes over the position as CPO.
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