As if the online food-delivery industry wasn’t convoluted enough, it turns out there is yet another intermediary.
Unlike
DoorDash
and
Grubhub,
15-year-old Olo isn’t a name known to your average eater. From a consumer’s perspective it mostly exists on the back end of their experience ordering online from a restaurant, helping chains with things such as third-party order integration and fulfillment. It competes with online delivery platforms in some facets of its business, but counts them as significant customers in others. It also boasts another key distinction: Its business is designed to be more like a software-as-a-service company.
Food delivery, but make it SaaS, essentially. In its initial public offering filing last month, Olo gave investors a taste of the profits that most food-delivery platforms haven’t been able to sustainably achieve. Even DoorDash, which grew revenue by 226% in 2020, still lost money for the year. But Olo said