Restaurant chain Wonder wants to buy local favorites
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Wonder, the labor-light restaurant concept led by former Walmart ecommerce boss Marc Lore, is quietly preparing to go public next year.
- In the meantime, Axios has learned that it's seeking to acquire small restaurant brands with devoted local followings.
Zoom in: Wonder's first restaurant acquisition came in February, when it paid around $6 million for Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, which has a single location in Manhattan's East Village.
- It has a number of similar deals in the works, with plans to do around two per quarter.
Zoom out: This is an M&A shift for Wonder, which is better known for bigger strategic deals like GrubHub, Spyce Robotics, and Blue Apron.
- It's also about Marc Lore trying to have his cake and eat it too. Wonder is designed to beat local restaurants by stripping out high labor costs, but also wants to give some of them a chance to join the team.
Catch up quick: Wonder has raised around $2.4 billion in private funding, including a $600 million infusion last May at a $7 billion post-money valuation.
- It currently has around 130 locations, each of which offers hundreds of different menu options through robot-assisted kitchens (plus some humans who do tasks robots still struggle with, like rolling burritos and stretching pizza dough).
- Next year it plans to offer drone delivery in Texas.
What to watch: The company soon will launch an AI tool to let people create new "restaurants" — including menu items and custom packaging — that will operate via Wonder.
- Creators will get a cut of profits, thus incentivizing them to socialize the restaurants' existence (and, in turn, do free marketing for Wonder).
- Don't be surprised to see some big-name influencers participate.
Wonder declined to comment for this story.
