In March, Tovala launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund its connected oven and its Blue Apron-like service. Since then, approximately 1,000 ovens have been purchased. This expression of interest has attracted the attention of investors, who have provided the company with $1.6 million more in funding. The new capital will be used to accelerate delivery of the ovens, with plans to open up sales to the public on March 1.
The round, which was raised this summer, was led by Origin Ventures, which previously funded GrubHub, and includes participation from Cruise and Twitch founder Kyle Vogt, Weebly founders Dan Veltri and Chris Fanini, RiverPark Ventures’ Andy Appelbaum, New Stack Ventures, GREE Ventures, Y Combinator partner Paul Buchheit, and Service Provider Capital.
Started by David Rabie and Bryan Wilcox, Tovala provides not only a connected oven but also a marketplace that delivers fresh, oven-ready food to your home. Each food order contains a barcode that, when scanned, will instruct the oven how to cook the dish, pulling the appropriate recipe from the cloud and pinpointing where you are, in order to perfect the meal to your taste.
More than $255,000 has been pledged to Tovala through its Kickstarter campaign, and Rabie told VentureBeat that the company will ship out nearly 700 units by December, with the rest expected to be distributed in March. “Arrival dates will vary based on exactly when the ovens leave the factory and where our customers live,” he said. Anyone who didn’t contribute to the Kickstarter campaign but is looking to purchase the connected oven can expect to find it available on March 1 with an estimated retail price of $329.
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Tovala’s $1.6 million fundraise comes on top of the $500,000 it received through a pre-seed funding round, which was also led by Origin Ventures. The company now has more than $2.1 million in its coffers.
