Beyond city limits: Germany’s voilà brings fine dining to your door

Berlin-based fine dining delivered to your door startup voilà has raised $10 million in a new funding round. The 8-month-old company will use the capital to further develop its tech stack and embark on a recruitment drive that will support pan-Europan expansion efforts.

Building upon their collective experiences with such food giants as Delivery Hero, Foodpanda, Foodora, the founding trio at voilà of Julius Wiesenhütter, Florian Berg, and Mostafa Nageeb are taking on a market that’s gone relatively unserved: fine dining experiences at home, no matter where home is.

If you’re an urban dweller, the tap, tap, tap convenience of getting a burger delivered to your doorstep has become commonplace. Elevate that hunger to a fine dining experience, and the process becomes a bit more involved, but nevertheless, obtainable. 

Now what if you’re still craving a Michelin-starred experience, but joined the masses who’ve made the exodus to somewhere a bit less urban, a bit less, shall we say, “accessible”?

A conundrum to say the least.

voilà bridges the gap between gastronomic partners that include Berlin’s Cookies Cream, and Food Technique, Hamburg’s Dim Sum Haus, and Michelin-starred chefs Hendrik Otto and Daniel Gottschlich, and your dining room table.

The Shopify-powered platform works in concert with logistics partners GO! & DHL via their express fresh shipping service to ensure that customer’s orders arrive on time, and on ice. For €9.90. In addition to the cost of the meal.

The company claims that they’ve already delivered to more than 1,200 cities across Germany, but makes no statement about its less-than-rural area delivery numbers.

“At voilà, we are not replacing visiting restaurants, we’re building something new: home fine dining, unlocking the experience category in food delivery,” commented CEO Wiesenhütter.

While the concept of bringing a fine dining experience in-house isn’t exactly new, yhangry, Cook+Thief, for example, the idea of getting this niche experience out to a remote location within 48 hours might just have wings.

Voilà’s $10 million investment round was led by EQT Ventures and saw existing investors FoodLabs, Shio Capital, and angel investors including former HelloFresh COO Roger Hassan.

“It’s impressive to see the traction that voilà has built in such a short time, winning some of the best and most celebrated chefs for their platform, bringing a fresh fine dining experience to food lovers’ homes,” comments FoodLabs’s Patrick Huber. “The timing is perfect for voilà's approach in food delivery: customers seek convenience and transparency, without compromising on quality and freshness.”