Marc Lore’s Wonder expands, mulls IPO

Less than a decade after its founding, food startup Wonder has seen its footprint and valuation soar.

Still, the company has even more ambitious plans ahead, like a subscription program to let diners run their own “restaurants,” an aggressive expansion in Texas and a potential initial public offering.

Created by serial entrepreneur Marc Lore in 2018, Wonder advertises itself as “the best restaurants from across the country, all in one place.” Diners can place takeout or delivery orders from its food hall-style locations on the Wonder-branded app or third-party platforms, including Grubhub, which Wonder now owns.

As Lore described it to CNBC, “Wonder is a vertically integrated food technology platform to make great food more accessible.”

To achieve its goal, Wonder plans to open locations in urban, suburban and rural areas nationwide and aims to keep prices lower than the cost of delivered groceries. Thanks to its ownership of Grubhub, Wonder customers who order through the startup’s app don’t have to pay delivery fees, and its menu prices aren’t inflated to cover the cost of commission fees to the delivery platform. Plus, Wonder is automating some of its kitchen functions, like assembling salads and bowls and soon sauces and beverages.

The company aims for food preparation and delivery to be fully autonomous by 2040, Lore said.

Now, Wonder has to convince diners its platform built on cost savings and choice makes it worth their while in a competitive industry.

Lore’s lofty vision for Wonder has helped the company raise $3.3 billion to date, from investors like DoorDash, Alphabet‘s venture arm and Gwyneth Paltrow. Its Series D fundraising round earlier this year raised its pre-money valuation to $9 billion — just under sandwich chain Subway’s sale price two years ago.

Wonder’s next pitch to investors could be on an IPO road show, assuming that the window for companies across industries to go public reopens in the coming months.

“[The mission] is really why I want to go public and raise the capital that it’ll take to build that kind of generational business, also to have a public currency to be able to do more M&A,” Lore said. “But I can’t talk about timing.”

Lore’s expertise lies in e-commerce, not restaurants.

He helped found the parent company of Diapers.com and sold it in 2010 to Amazon for $545 million. Just six years later, Walmart paid about $3 billion for his follow-up venture, Jet.com. Lore stayed at the retailer until 2021 to accelerate Walmart’s e-commerce growth.

Basketball fans might also recognize Lore as an owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves. In 2021, he and baseball legend Alex Rodriguez agreed to buy the team for $1.5 billion, although the deal was not finalized until 2025. Lore recently struck a deal to shrink his investment to a minority stake…