Number of the Day
Why the Uber Founder is Buying Up Property, by the Numbers
Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens venture needs a lot of space
40: That’s at least how many properties that CloudKitchens, the new venture from Uber founder Travis Kalanick, has spent $130 million buying up in cities such as Nashville, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Portland, Oregon over the past two years, according to a review of property records and data by the Wall Street Journal. CloudKitchens is a startup that sets up so-called “ghost kitchens” — cooking facilities without dining spaces that exclusively produce meals for delivery — which have gotten a lot of fresh attention in the pandemic era as traditional sit-down restaurants have been hobbled by lockdowns, restrictions, and skittish consumers.
Most ghost kitchen ventures rent space, and the decision to directly acquire so much property seems like a departure from the asset-light Uber model. The Journal reports that CloudKitchens is getting some good deals since the pandemic pummeled the commercial real estate market, but the secretive company has said little about its ultimate strategy. Certainly it has money to spend, having raised at least $400 million from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund. And Kalanick is hardly known for being risk-averse: Uber’s aggressive, daredevil style under his leadership was notorious. While Uber remains unprofitable (despite a new focus on, yes, food delivery), the risks worked out well enough for Kalanick himself. After stepping down under investor pressure in 2017, he cashed out his Uber shares for a reported $2.7 billion. CloudKitchens’ model — launched years before the pandemic — now looks prescient.
But will diners’ taste for delivery outlast the lockdowns?
