Wonder Group Founder and CEO Marc Lore sat down with Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi to discuss the tech startup’s partnership with top chefs to offer gourmet food delivery, opening the first New York locations, expansion plans, and Lore's entrepreneurship.

Video Transcript

MARC LORE: We're really elevating at-home dining experience through pickup and delivery. But unlike what's available out there today-- ghost kitchens and things-- this is very different. There are going to be 30 different restaurants-- some of the best restaurants around the country in every cuisine. We hooked up with some of the best chefs around the country to put all 30 restaurants, cooked, right back here in our kitchen. So it's a massive kitchen. 30 restaurants cook.

You can shop across all 30 restaurants in a single checkout. And the goal is because we've got so much density given how many restaurants we have coming out of this location, we're only going six blocks in either direction. So imagine a six-minute delivery by electric bike. And we're averaging about just under 10-minute cook time per meal. So end to end, order to eat, and you order off hours, you're going to get it in 15 to 20 minutes.

During peak time, we'll leave a little bit of a queue for labor efficiency. And so it'll be around 30, 35 minutes. But again, you're going to get this incredible quality food-- piping hot-- delivered by our own Wonder couriers with the chef coat and the hat in a beautiful bag really fast, on time, across all the restaurants.

BRIAN SOZZI: How do you get these chefs to part with their babies, these recipes? Do you make the food in here? Do they make the food?

MARC LORE: Yeah, we make the food in here. We go through a very strict learning phase with them to make sure that we're able to replicate the food to their standards. But once we do that, yeah, we've systematized it where the food comes out consistent every time, which is one of the keys to the model. So it's not-- the food doesn't vary as much as it would in a typical restaurant.

BRIAN SOZZI: So you've done-- I've followed the whole career. You've done diapers. You've done e-commerce and Jet.com. You've done Walmart. Why the big bet on food and food delivery?

MARC LORE: I just think that the food market is ripe for massive disruption. It's been a really long time since you've had any real technological innovation in food. And you combine that with what's happening with food delivery-- 2010, we're at $10 million in revenue.

Fast forward 13 years later, $100 billion in the US in delivery, annually, and we project it's going to go to nearly $600 billion by 2035. So I think we're seeing that the younger generations are putting a premium on convenience. They want to spend less time cooking, more time enjoying time with their family.

BRIAN SOZZI: I don't want to cook.

MARC LORE: You don't want to cook anything, yeah. So-- so we think that that's, like, a really big megatrend that's a tailwind here. And it feels kind of like the early days of-- of e-commerce, where it started with marketplaces and then Amazon came with a robust first-party offering.

That's the place that we want to, you know, play. Here in this- in this market, which is come to this, you know, delivery market with a really robust end-to-end, vertically integrated, first-party experience.

BRIAN SOZZI: We just got some food. Let's go! Let's go!

MARC LORE: Oh, this is-- this is a-- pretty good. That is?

- And shrimp tacos from our bar.

BRIAN SOZZI: Impressive.

MARC LORE: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

BRIAN SOZZI: Impressive stuff. Pardon me, I'm going to be eating--

MARC LORE: Yeah, what do you think? That looks pretty good. Not bad. Not too bad.

BRIAN SOZZI: I think it's a pastrami sandwich. It's pretty good.

MARC LORE: Thank you. And these are--

BRIAN SOZZI: Shrimp tacos. How do you--

MARC LORE: Shrimp tacos.

BRIAN SOZZI: --how do you scale these things-- scale this up? Like, how do you go from, what, third location in the city to what is your ultimate vision for this across the country?

MARC LORE: I mean, ultimately, like, if the market plays out the way we think it will, this is 5,000, 10,000 units across the US.

BRIAN SOZZI: Uh-huh.

MARC LORE: But obviously, you know, it's-- this year we've got 10 planned. So I think it's all a matter of proving the 10 that we do, that we can get these things profitable and have a really good return on CapEx. And customers love it, really high net promoter score, it's great repeat rates.

I do think it's much easier to scale this business, because we're looking for 3,000, 3,500 square feet, essentially restaurants. We have no open flames, no hoods back there, no grease traps. It's all electric. So literally we just find 3,500 square feet. We can build this out in-- in a few months, and then we're up and running.

BRIAN SOZZI: You just took over as, what, CEO? What made you--

MARC LORE: CEO in October.

BRIAN SOZZI: --what made you step in there?

MARC LORE: Yeah, I don't know. The only analogy I can-- I can--

BRIAN SOZZI: You're a busy guy.

MARC LORE: --I can say is, I use this-- I use this as, like-- I was, you know, I was coaching and just really missed playing and just wanted to get back on the field. And it's-- once-- once I did that and it started rolling, now I'm, like, I'm so hooked, you know? It's--

BRIAN SOZZI: It feels-- does it feel like the early days of--

MARC LORE: It feels like-- it feels--

BRIAN SOZZI: --chet.com?

MARC LORE: --more-- people find this funny, but I'm-- I'm more fired up, more motivated, more driven, putting more time into Wonder now than I did in any startups in my past. And-- and it's because I feel it. I just feel it. I know-- I know this, you know? I know that we have a massive opportunity to change people's lives and change how they eat, and to really elevate this at home dining experience that everybody wants.

BRIAN SOZZI: If I'm right, you've raised, what, $850 million capital?

MARC LORE: Yeah.

BRIAN SOZZI: How much--

MARC LORE: $800 million of equity.

BRIAN SOZZI: $800 million of equity. How much do you need to make this vision come to life?

MARC LORE: I mean, you know, it's done in stages. And so, you know, we're going to raise a couple hundred million into the late summer, into the fall, to bridge into a big growth round in early '25. And then from there it'll depend on how fast we want to grow. But, you know, it could be anywhere from as little as maybe a billion or so, to many billions if we wanted to-- to really ramp it up--

BRIAN SOZZI: You think it--

MARC LORE: --fast.

BRIAN SOZZI: --it's a public company?

MARC LORE: Yeah, definitely.