Seamless North America LLC is an online food ordering service that allows users to order food for delivery and takeout from restaurants through their web site or suite of mobile apps.
History
Seamless was launched in 1999 by Jason Finger, Paul Appelbaum, Todd Arky and Andy Appelbaum as SeamlessWeb, providing companies with a web-based system for ordering food from restaurants and caterers. Starting in 2005, Seamless was made available to the individual users and they currently partner with over 12,000 restaurants, serve over 4,000 companies, and have over 2,000,000 members in the United States and in London. The service is available for personal orders in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Miami, Chicago, Houston, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. They were acquired by Aramark in April 2006. On June 8, 2011, Spectrum Equity Investors made a $50 million minority investment in Seamless and the company was spun out of Aramark into an independent entity. On June 28, 2011, SeamlessWeb notified their clients they had changed their name to Seamless. In May 2013, Seamless announced the signing of an agreement to merge with GrubHub, creating a combined company with a higher order volume and improved regional coverage. On August 9, 2013, Seamless and GrubHub completed their merger and now operate under the name GrubHub, Inc.. The merger resulted in connecting diners with approximately 25,000 restaurants for online and mobile-ordering across the United States and in London. In the first half of 2013, the combined organization processed approximately 130,000 orders per day.
Operation
Users have the option of ordering from the website or from a Seamless mobile app for Android, BlackBerry, or iOS. Users enter their address, and Seamless returns a list of restaurants that will deliver to the submitted address. Users then select a restaurant, create an order from the online menu, and submit the order electronically by entering their credit card or a company billing code. Ratings, reviews, photos, tags, and other information is provided to help the user find the most appropriate meal. Seamless does not prepare or deliver any food. Once a user submits an order, it is automatically sent to a dedicated computer terminal or fax machine at the restaurant. The restaurant confirms the order with Seamless and then prepares and delivers the order. At many restaurants, users also have the option to pick up their meals at the restaurant. The ordering process works in the same way, except that the user goes to the restaurant for their food instead of having the food delivered.
Recognition
SeamlessWeb was recognized as the 4th fastest-growing private company in the United States in the 2004 Inc. 500 list. The company had the highest rate of revenue growth among New York state technology companies in the 2005 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 program, and was selected as one of TIME magazine's 50 Coolest Web Sites for 2006. In August 2009, SeamlessWeb was featured on the MSNweb seriesCool Runnings. In the episode, entitled "Carving a Niche in Online Food Delivery", host Antonio Neves interviewed key personnel at SeamlessWeb, along with the restaurants and companies they work with, providing important insights into how SeamlessWeb began and how it thrived. Jason Finger, co-founder and long-time CEO, won the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for E-Services and has received a number of other honors.
