CARY – Recipe startup Myxx has expanded its shoppable recipe platform to Kroger’s ClickList.com online portal in 1,300 stores across 17 states. Kroger is the second-largest U.S. grocery company and retailer and owns grocery chain Harris Teeter, where the startup already has a standing partnership deal.
Myxx
“Our goal is to have the largest network of shoppable content,” said Dede Houston, co-founder and COO of Myxx. The company launched a partnership with Harris Teeter, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kroger, in 2017, and began to pilot a digital integration of the Myxx platform with HarrisTeeterRecipes.com.
This gave shoppers at the 240 Harris Teeter stores in the southeast access to a catalog of more than 50,000 searchable and shoppable recipes, the ingredients for which could be easily printed for an in-store shopping list or quickly added to their local store’s online checkout portal for curbside pickup or delivery.
“We love our partnership with Harris Teeter,” said Monica Wood, cofounder and CEO of Myxx, “The team there is so innovative, and customer driven.” The partnership began with a cold call nearly two years ago, and the Myxx team has developed a deep relationship with the retailer.
Myxx generates revenue through partnerships with consumer packaged goods brands and retailers. Consumers do not pay an additional fee to use the Myxx platform to search for recipes or download shopping lists. The platform highlights brands like Aidells, Barilla, Eggland’s Best, and McCormick, all of which pay Myxx to ensure that their brand is the default ingredient in a consumer’s shopping list.
Brands also benefit from a customized landing page on the Myxx platform that converts brand-generated recipes into shopping lists and a customized back-end portal to analyze campaigns in real-time.
The extension to Kroger stores means that the shoppable content directly connects to consumer’s online shopping carts for Kroger stores, just like it does for Harris Teeter shoppers, said Wood.
The Cary-based company received $400,000 in seed funding in a round led by Cofounders Capital and RHM in August 2016, the same month the company launched their beta product. Other investors include RTP Capital, Charlotte Angels, and IMAF2.
“We’re really excited about the expansion of the Myxx platform,” said David Gardner, founder and managing partner of Cofounders Capital, “We’re very proud of the team.”
The Myxx platform helps consumers start with dinner and quickly identify the ingredients needed to make it happen, said Gardner, all on a digital platform. “People don’t want groceries, they want dinner,” he said. That’s what Myxx offers.
“The rapid adoption of meal kits and online grocery shopping underscores the rising consumer demand for convenient meal time solutions,” said Wood, representing a huge opportunity. And that opportunity is increasing, said Gardner, with the rate of people buying the majority of their groceries online increasing at a rate of 4% each year.
Myxx is adding users at an even quicker clip. According to Wood and Houston, user growth increased by 2,900% in 2017. Funding from the company’s seed round helped hire staff, refine the product offering, and build key relationships with grocery chains and consumer brands. Myxx employs five full-time employees and six additional contractors, conducting most of their work out of the Cofounders Capital Accelerator in downtown Cary. Together, they’re building a company with the busy home cook – typically working mothers, said Wood – in mind.
“Myxx is the only solution that allows a consumer to shop when, where, and how they want,” said Wood. Thousands of shoppers have created accounts on the platform, myxxrecipes.com, which can be used by anyone, regardless of their local grocery store, to find recipes and download shopping lists.
