Baby food delivery is one of those “why didn’t I think of that” ideas in the delivery world, especially when they announce a huge investment round like Yumi just did.
Yumi is a science-based, early-childhood meal delivery program and one of a handful of startups in the baby food delivery market. It just successfully raised $8 million to fuel further expansion. So far, the company has now raised $12.1 million.
According to a Techcrunch article about the fundraising efforts, the latest round included big names in next-wave foodservice like Blue Bottle Coffee’s CEO James Freeman and Sweetgreen. It also includes brands like SoulCycle, Uber and Casper; the latter participated in the seed round as well.
Baby food is a vertical that is being heavily disrupted by many new entrants looking to topple the giant Gerber baby food empire. Like others, Yumi is priced a little higher (about $5 per meal) and hopes busy parents will spend more for the convenience of having healthy food delivered.
A widely cited report from Zion Market Research projects the baby food market will reach more than $76 billion in 2021, a 6.2 percent growth rate between 2016 and that future date.
That’s a lot of $5 baby food, but never bet against convenience or how much parents will pay for a healthy baby.
