Wonder Group food delivery startup gets $100 million Nestle investment

Food-delivery company Wonder Group has gotten a cash infusion from Nestle, as the startup looks to sell high-tech kitchen equipment and prepared ingredients to businesses such as hotels, hospitals and sports arenas.

The deal includes a $100 million investment from Nestle, along with a strategic partnership, according to sources familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because financial terms of the deal are not public.

Nestle and Wonder confirmed the deal but declined to reveal transaction details.

The funding could get Wonder a step closer to its ambitions of making it easier, faster and cheaper for busy families to have high-quality meals at home. The startup, which was valued at about $3.5 billion when it closed a $350 million funding round in June, was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur and former Walmart e-commerce chief Marc Lore.

Wonder recently struck a deal to acquire meal-kit company Blue Apron for $103 million. It has also developed kitchen equipment that simplifies and speeds up cooking restaurant-quality food.

Prior to Wonder, Lore founded and sold e-commerce startup Jet.com to Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016. Walmart ultimately shut down Jet, but Lore oversaw the big-box retailer’s aggressive push into the online world and its race to close the gap with rival Amazon. He left Walmart nearly three years ago.

Lore sold Quidsi, another business he co-founded and the parent company of Diapers.com, to Amazon.

In an interview with CNBC, Lore said working with Nestle will help Wonder scale more quickly.

Nestle, a food and beverage giant, makes ingredients, snacks and frozen meals carried by grocery stores, but also has a large food-service business and sells to clients including college campuses and cruise lines. Some of those companies may also want Wonder’s kitchen equipment, Lore said.

The partnership will start with Nestle making pizza and pasta tailored for Wonder’s kitchen equipment, along with selling the kitchen equipment to clients.

Melissa Henshaw, president of out-of-home for Nestle, said many of Nestle’s clients have struggled to keep up as customers seek convenient meals and bolder flavors, but the businesses lack the employees to make them. In many…