David Rabie @ Tovala On Recent Series C, Staying Lean As A FoodTech Startup, And Why Tovala Chose Chicago over Silicon Valley
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Overcast, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform.
“I think the only way to prepare for this job is to do the job. It's very hard to practice what we're doing, so I try to surround myself with people that have done it before. ”
David Rabie is the co-founder and CEO of Tovala, a FoodTech service built for the busiest people. Based in Chicago, Tovala prepares and delivers fresh meals that can be cooked to perfection in its proprietary oven.
David grew up in Southern California and moved to Chicago in 2013 to attain his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. While completing his MBA, David realized that he wanted to solve the modern professional’s problem of cooking a convenient, healthy, and quick home meal. Since then, Tovala has clearly achieved product-market fit and successfully scaled to a growth-stage company. Tovala grew its revenue by 10x in the last year and a half and has surpassed 3 million meals shipped nationwide. The company has also successfully raised multiple rounds of financing, including a recent $30 million series C investment.
David spoke with Matt about the background of Tovala, their early growth challenges, how his leadership role has changed, and why he chose Chicago over Silicon Valley.
Please Enjoy
You can find David on LinkedIn and Tovala on Instagram, Linkedin and the Tovala website.
Manifold Group is a venture holding company based in Chicago with offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, and soon Atlantic Canada. Early stage private investments represent an extraordinary investment opportunity, but existing investment models in the space leave much to be desired.Manifold is a new model for growth in the new economy, designed to create and capture value at the early stage through synergies across its venture fund, incubation and acceleration studio, and advisory firm. Learn more about Manifold at https://www.manifold.group.
