Hungry House, a New York-based fast casual restaurant platform, is merging with MegaBite, a Latin American delivery-focused restaurant platform, to create BiteLabs.

The emerging fast casual company has 13 locations in the U.S., Mexico and Peru and a combined annual revenue of over $6 million, according to Pedro Neira, CEO of MegaBite and BiteLabs. Co-Founder and COO Andrew Corrigan, the former regional area director DIG, and Co-Founder and Head of Growth Solamon Cruz Estin, who previously worked for CloudKitchens, DoorDash and UberEats, are also partners in BiteLabs.

"We believe that Hungry House and MegaBite, operating together, have the potential to be the most innovative, tech-enabled, multi-brand fast casual restaurant group across the Americas," Neira said in a press release. "We'll continue to bring our vision of chef-backed fast casual restaurants with a dynamic in-store experience, and a robust native app, to diverse audiences passionate about great food.

The entity will double down on continued growth across the verticals of in-store retail, first-party delivery and third-party delivery partnerships with UberEATS, GrubHub, DoorDash and Rappi in Latin America .

Neira stressed the company is not a ghost kitchen platform, explaining the approach is similar to that of Wonder, a food hall concept created by former Walmart eCommerce CEO and Jet.com Founder Marc Lore, that recently secured an additional $100 million in funding from Nestlé.

"Given that our customers can reach us with in-person eating in our restaurants, via pickup, through third-party apps, as well as online through our own native apps and websites, I would say our business model mirrors more that of Sweetgreen, CAVA, and Shake Shack. The only difference is that we are serving multiple brands in our locations and not just one," Neira said.

The merger creates an opportunity for expansion, as Hungry House provides expertise in business-to-business catering service while MegaBite offers expertise in data-driven, food delivery optimization across its multiple sales channels, Neira said.

"Joining my own experience as a serial entrepreneur now developing my fourth startup, Andrew's deep culinary operations experience, and Solamon's background launching and scaling hyper-growth tech companies across the Americas, creates a highly complementary co-founding team," he said. "We will aim not only to significantly increase our revenue performance, but also work toward world-class unit economics across our soon-to-be 15 locations in a retail-forward model, collaborate with our inspiring chef partners, and delight our curious diners from the US to Latin America."

The growth and expansion of Hungry House and MegaBite, as well as the merger, was facilitated by Wilshire Lane Capital, Carao Ventures, SNR VC, McK Hospitality, Alaya Capital, Amarena VC and independent investors including Russ Rosenband, Atit Jariwala and Andrew Balogh.

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