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- Lunchbox provides digital ordering, loyalty and marketing services to restaurants.
- The startup is led by an industry provocateur. Nabel Alamgir, who started the New York bus tunnel.
- On Thursday, the CEO told Insider that the company had to cut 60 employees due to growth.
Lunchbox, the New York-based food tech startup whose CEO is known for opposing anti-restaurant delivery apps like GrubHub and DoorDash, cut 33% of its workforce Thursday.
The company, which has raised $72 million in less than three years, went from 180 to 120 full-time employees on Thursday. A third were notified in a zoom call. The remaining 40 employees were sent messages to their personal emails, Lunchbox CEO and founder Nabel Alamgir told Isair late Thursday.
The cuts come as food-tech investors pressure well-funded start-ups to cut back on operations amid turmoil in the capital’s markets.
“We all got drunk on VC capital, and we had to stay awake,” Alamgir told Insider.
Other food technology companies cutting workforces and growing jobs include Nextbite, ChowNow, Reef Technology, Gopuff and Sunday. SoftBank backs many of these startups.
Alamgir said that like other VC-backed companies, Lunch Box has grown rapidly. He said the layoffs hit all departments, especially engineers and technology roles.
In the past few months, Lunchbox has bought into restaurants like Novadin to help automate restaurant onboarding. The CEO said that Lunch Box can now operate with very lean staff.
“We were all blown away,” Alamgir said. “We will no longer be growth at all costs. We will no longer be dependent on investors. We are now working to be cash positive.”
Alamgir, who has since completely distanced himself from the company, said he has booster calls set up on Fridays and weekends to contact those who were told by email that they were out of a job.
The company said it is investing $700,000 in severance packages and seeking private employment for those who have been laid off.
“I still feel like crap. I’m responsible for a lot of people, and I need to sleep tonight knowing that.”
Nabel Alamgir is the CEO of Lunchbox. He fired 60 people on this birthday – Thursday, July 21, 2022.
Lunch item
In the year Before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country in March 2020, restaurant operators began sounding the alarm about the economic problems they faced when working with third-party delivery apps like GrubHub and Uber Eats.
Alamgir, who was chief marketing officer at Bareburger, was often very loud. In the year In 2019, he left Barburger to launch Lunch Box to eliminate “unfair” restaurants faced with delivery apps. Alamgir says it’s always been his mission to help mom-and-pop restaurants reduce their dependence on third-party delivery companies.
In addition to offering online restaurant ordering, Lunch Box services include loyalty and marketing programs for brands such as Mexican, Fuku and Bareburger. Last year, Lunchbox launched the NotGrubhub website to promote direct orders from 120,000 New York restaurants. Introduced Citizens Go, an online ordering app for virtual brand company C3.
Last year, Insider named it among 33 restaurant tech power players. Today, Lunchbox works with about 4,000 restaurants and still plans to grow through acquisitions, Alamgir said.
In June, Lunchbox began offering basic online ordering software to mom-and-pop restaurants for free. Even though they were laid off today, Alemgar said there was still that free offer. “Restaurants need it now more than ever.”
Christine Hawley contributed to this report.
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