Founder: Mike Xu (CEO)
Launched: 2014
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: $600 million
Valuation: $4.5 billion
Key Technologies: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, generative AI, machine learning
Industry: Food, logistics
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 list: 2 (No. 23 in 2024)
Igor Gnedo, Antonina Lepore & Adrianne Paerels
The food supply chain has long been dominated by pen and paper workflows and fragmented logistics. GrubMarket, a food tech company, is working to digitize and modernize the industry. In the span of a decade, it’s become one of the largest private players in its sector, using software and AI.
Founder Mike Xu has a background in both technology and agriculture, having grown up in rural China before studying biochemistry and computer science. While in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he rented land to grow crops, which he sold at a profit.
“I was able to quickly get traction because my price was about 50 percent below Whole Foods, even after I made good margin. This really inspired me — I was able to see the inefficiencies in the food supply chain,” he told BlueBook.
Under his leadership, GrubMarket has scaled into a global operation with 12,000 employees and customers in over 70 countries. It now competes against traditional foodservice giants, such as US Foods and Sysco, but has sought to differentiate itself by its focus on technology. GrubMarket’s platform is now used by thousands of institutions and brands, including Whole Foods, Safeway, Fresh Direct, 99 Ranch Market, plus restaurants and corporate offices.
Its growth has been hard to ignore. From 2020 to 2024, revenue grew more than twelvefold. GrubMarket isn’t just the largest private food tech company in the U.S. by revenue, it’s modernizing one of the world’s oldest supply chains.
In the past year, GrubMarket released GrubAssist, an order entry software for food distributors and wholesalers to streamline ordering by eliminating manual entries. It also released AI Orders, an AI-powered automated order processing module that converts phone, text, and fax communications from customers into orders for wholesalers and distributors. The company also rolled out an AI chatbot to automate customer and vendor support.
In addition, GrubMarket made 10 acquisitions over the past year. Among them: Good Eggs, a West Coast online grocer, which it made profitable within a month of acquisition; and Brothers Produce, one of the largest foodservice distributors in Texas. It also acquired Delta Fresh Produce, an Arizona-based distributor specializing in tomatoes and other commodities sourced from Mexico, and made its first acquisition in South Africa to support international expansion.
The company’s $600 million to date from investors includes Tiger Global, Liberty Street Funds, and BlackRock.
The past year wasn’t without a blemish for the company. In January, GrubMarket settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for what the SEC claimed was overstating of historical revenue by approximately $550 million during a 2019-2021 fundraising period. The company agreed to pay an $8 million penalty and committed to upgrading its financial controls without admitting or denying any of the claims.
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