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Zerocater
YC W11San Francisco, US · Founded 2009 · 140 employees · 14 known investors
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Zerocater provides corporate meal and snack delivery services for office-based companies across multiple U.S. cities. The company partners with local restaurants and food vendors to supply employees with meals and snacks at their workplaces.
Also known as Zero Cater · ZeroCater
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (W11)
Zerocater was founded in 2009 by Arram Sabeti and Joseph Walla.
Investors · 14
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · av.vc · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Cleveland Avenue's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Rainfall Ventures's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us
How we know: REMUS Capital's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · research · techcrunch.com · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the VCSheet dataset · research · zerocater.com · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Western Technology Investment's portfolio page · the VCSheet dataset · Not right? Tell us
How we know: the Y Combinator directory · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: research · zerocater.com · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
How we know: Y Combinator's founder network · Not right? Tell us
Also in the syndicate · 1
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements- Undisclosed amountSeries CFeb 2023 · 2 sourcesSource ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Zerocater is a San Francisco-based corporate food service provider that designs and operates catering, cafeteria and event dining programs for offices. Rather than having clients build and staff their own kitchens, Zerocater sources meals from a network of local restaurants, caterers, food trucks and commissary/ghost kitchens, then delivers and staffs the onsite dining experience. Core offerings include Cloud Cafe (employees pre-order boxed meals from a daily selection via the Zerocater app), Managed Cafe (buffet-style service based on pre-orders), a Hybrid Cafe blend of the two, and Event Cafe/event catering with onsite serving staff, equipment and themed decor. The company also sells corporate cafeteria programs with chef-led onsite cooking, snack and micro-kitchen provisioning, and managed barista coffee bars, and previously launched a standalone office snacks and beverages product in 2017.
Zerocater layers software on top of the service: an employee-facing app for ordering, paying and rating meals, and an admin dashboard for reviewing menus and staffing and tracking spend and performance. Its FoodIQ platform applies AI/analytics to post-meal feedback and prior ordering behavior to personalize each customer's rotating menus and to reduce food and staffing waste. A newer CaterAi product lets buyers build menus, book onsite staff and plan decor through a real-time chat interface based on headcount, budget, dietary needs and cuisine preferences.
The company was founded by Arram Sabeti and went through Y Combinator in Winter 2011; Ali Sabeti is CEO as of the 2023 Series C and the company's about page. Zerocater has raised $38.5 million to date, was reported by its CEO to have been profitable almost from the start, and says it serves offices ranging from 25 to 3,000 employees.
Founding story
Arram Sabeti moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at age 21 after selling his car, initially working at Ben & Jerry's, and became the fifth employee at Justin.tv, where he handled office operations and lunch ordering. Finding catering the most stressful part of the job, he tracked restaurants and order dates in a spreadsheet; after another company's office manager asked to use his list, he began ordering food for other offices as a side project. He left Justin.tv after two years to launch ZeroCater around the mission of making it easy for companies to feed their people.
Business model
B2B food service. Zerocater aggregates demand from office clients and fulfills it through a network of third-party restaurants, caterers and commissary kitchens, layering its own logistics, onsite hospitality staff and software (ordering app, admin dashboard, FoodIQ personalization). Programs are structured so companies pay only for employees who actually come into the office, without long-term contracts or capital spending on in-house kitchens.
Historically a marketplace take-rate model: a service fee charged to the customer plus a percentage of the order captured from the food provider, including the spread when Zerocater negotiated better-than-menu prices with restaurants. Current offerings are sold as managed catering and cafeteria programs priced per meal/per person, with per-employee-attending billing for hybrid workplaces.
Traction
Reported more than $250 million in cumulative sales by 2018, up from $100 million in 2015. The pandemic eliminated 98% of the business, after which headcount rebuilt from a handful of people in spring 2020 to 50 in 2021 and 175 in 2022, with a plan to reach 200. Revenue tripled in the 12 months preceding the February 2023 Series C. The company's site cites over 500 companies fed across 12 cities, over 1,000 restaurant and caterer partners (450 food providers as of 2023), and 96% of meal services completed without errors.
Latest developments
In February 2023 Zerocater closed a $15 million Series C led by Cleveland Avenue with Remus Capital to expand from its two core markets (New York City and the Bay Area) to ten additional cities in the U.S. and Canada and to extend its FoodIQ AI and analytics. Its current site markets a CaterAi chat-based menu, staffing and decor builder, corporate cafeteria programs with chef-led onsite cooking and barista bars, and service across 12-13 U.S. metros.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Describes itself as one of the largest corporate catering and cafeteria providers in the United States, and previously as the leader in corporate catering and cafeteria solutions in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. It positions against traditional contract foodservice companies and other office-food startups in what it cites as a $182 billion corporate cafeteria and catering market (cited as $144 billion corporate foodservices in 2018).
Combines a curated third-party supply network with in-house onsite hospitality teams and data-driven menu personalization, offering variety (10 daily cuisines and 70 daily menu items drawn from 120+ cuisines and 20,000 menu items) without clients building or staffing kitchens. Hybrid-work pricing charges only for employees who attend, and there are no multi-year commitments; the company reports it reached over $250 million in cumulative sales on $5.6 million of outside capital before its Series B.
Technology
Proprietary ordering and management software: an employee app for meal selection, payment and post-meal feedback, and an administrator dashboard for menu and staffing review plus spend and performance analytics. The FoodIQ AI/machine-learning layer uses accumulated feedback and ordering history to curate daily menus per customer and to forecast demand, reducing food and staffing waste; CaterAi provides a conversational interface that generates menus, staffing and decor plans from stated headcount, budget, dietary and cuisine constraints. Feedback is collected through the dashboard, email and onsite physical terminals.
Go-to-market
Direct enterprise sales and inbound web requests (demo/consultation forms, phone and text), supported by city-level catering menu directories, comparison pages against rival food service providers, and a culinary-partner recruitment funnel for restaurants, caterers, food trucks and commissary kitchens. Early growth came from founder-led referrals among office managers.
Companies with office-based workforces, from growing startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, spanning offices of roughly 25 to 3,000 employees. Named customers over time include Salesforce, Dropbox, BuzzFeed, Fandango, RetailMeNot, Indeed, Venmo, Slack, Datadog, Splunk, Druva, Robinhood and McKinsey & Company.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco's SoMa district, with a South San Francisco warehouse for the snacks and kitchens team and offices listed in New York City, Chicago, Austin, the Washington D.C. metro area and Los Angeles. Service markets listed on the company site include the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Atlanta. The 2023 Series C funded expansion to ten additional markets, including a first international market in Canada.
History
Founded by Arram Sabeti in 2009 as a two-sided marketplace connecting offices with local restaurants, the company completed Y Combinator in Winter 2011 and raised $1.5 million around that time. It expanded across U.S. cities, added an office snacks and beverages product in 2017, and raised a $12 million Series B led by Cleveland Avenue in May 2018 to pursue Fortune 500 accounts and national expansion, adding Justin Kan, J. Skyler Fernandes and Krishna K. Gupta to its board. COVID-19 wiped out 98% of the business; the company rebuilt around new Cloud Cafe, Hybrid Cafe and Managed Cafe products for hybrid work and raised a $15 million Series C in February 2023, again led by Cleveland Avenue with Remus Capital. Ali Sabeti, previously in marketing, product and corporate finance leadership roles at Salesforce, serves as CEO, with Prabjot Jaaj as Chief Product and Technology Officer.
Risks & controversies
The business is tied to office attendance: COVID-19 removed 98% of Zerocater's revenue and forced deep headcount reductions, and hybrid work leaves daily in-office headcount unpredictable. The broader office- and consumer-food delivery sector has seen low margins, high overhead and easily replicated models, and Zerocater competes with large incumbent contract caterers as well as venture-backed rivals. Growth also depends on a third-party supply network of restaurants and commissary kitchens that proved fragile during the pandemic.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Related companies · 10
Companies working in the same space as Zerocater.
Timeline · 8
launches, deals, and filingsAnnounced plans to grow from its Bay Area and New York City core markets to ten cities across the U.S. and Canada, its first international market.
Series C with participation from Remus Capital, funding geographic expansion and further investment in AI and analytics.
$15M source ↗
Products built during the pandemic: app-based boxed meal pre-ordering (Cloud Cafe), buffet-style managed service (Managed Cafe) and a blend (Hybrid Cafe), billed only for employees who come into the office.
COVID-19 removed 98% of Zerocater's business as restaurants closed and office customers disappeared; remaining demand came from biotech, COVID-testing and essential-worker clients. Headcount fell to a handful of people by spring 2020.
Series B with participation from Romulus Capital and Struck Capital, intended to expand snacks and catering nationally and target Fortune 500 accounts.
$12M source ↗
Justin Kan, J. Skyler Fernandes (Cleveland Avenue) and Krishna K. Gupta (Romulus Capital) joined the board alongside the Series B.
Rolled out curated snack and beverage delivery for offices, including setting up refrigerators and shelving on request.
Zerocater was incubated at Y Combinator, completing the Winter 2011 batch when cohorts numbered about 45 companies.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Zerocaterzerocater.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Zerocater do?
- Zerocater runs technology-managed corporate catering, cafeteria and event food programs for U.S. offices.
- Who founded Zerocater?
- Zerocater was founded by Arram Sabeti, Joseph Walla in 2009.
- Who are Zerocater's investors?
- Zerocater's investors include Alumni Ventures, Cleveland Avenue, Rainfall Ventures, REMUS Capital, Struck Capital, Western Technology Investment, Y Combinator, Agrolimen Ventures and 5 more.
- Where is Zerocater headquartered?
- Zerocater is headquartered in San Francisco, US.