Not So Dark swapped dark kitchens for virtual delivery brands run inside restaurants

Not So Dark creates digital food delivery brands that partner restaurants cook and fulfill alongside their own menus, sold on Deliveroo and Uber Eats.

$80M Series B (September 2022) led by Kharis Capital and Verlinvest, with Convivialité Ventures participating.

Founded by Clément Benoit and Alexandre Haggai, Not So Dark began with a network of dark kitchens it owned and operated.

Shortly after its Series A the company abandoned the owned-kitchen model — too capital-hungry, with issues in some neighborhoods — and rebuilt around existing restaurants, running ad campaigns and real-time listing price adjustments across Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

The pivot moved the company off the capital treadmill: partner kitchens carry the fixed costs, Not So Dark carries the brands and the data.

Franchise economics scale by adding brands, not buildings — the same partner kitchen can cook several of its virtual brands.

Pooling hundreds of partners gives it ad leverage and pricing data that no single restaurant could gather on its own.

Owning the kitchens made Not So Dark a real-estate company; owning the brands and the data made it a franchise. Pick the layer where scale does not require capital.

As of 2022-09-26 Not So Dark operates in France and Belgium across 100 cities with 150 employees, and says the new funding will go toward building 'the biggest restaurant in the world that doesn't have a kitchen.'