Food52, a US-based crowdsourced recipe website, has raised $2m in its series A round from a consortium led by Germany-based publisher Bertelsmann’s corporate venturing unit.
Alongside Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) in the A round were venture capital firms Vocap Ventures, Zelkova Ventures and Lerer Ventures and angel networks and individuals, such as Gary Vaynerchuk, Joanne Wilson and 15 Angels.
Lerer and angel investors provided $750,000 in Food52’s seed round in 2010.
Food52 said it would be expanding its publishing platform through a partnership with Bertelsmann’s Random House subsidiary, which publishes food writers Ina Garten, Alice Waters and Yotam Ottolenghi.
Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, co-founders of Food52, said: “We’re delighted to be working with BDMI, whose parent company, Bertelsmann, is one of the world’s largest homes for creative content and owns a number of leading European recipe sites like Chefkoch.de.”
Sim Blaustein, a principal at BDMI, added: “The Food52 team has cultivated an impressive community of food enthusiasts, home cooks and writers who have created some of the best food-related content on the web.”