The question, from journalist Kara Swisher to Sweetgreen cofounder and CEO Jonathan Neman, following a discussion on kale and robotics, was simple. “Are you profitable?” she asked, as a 2018 episode of her Recode Decode podcast drew to a close. “We are,” Neman replied.
But when the Los Angeles-based salad chain filed to go public last October, it revealed financials that directly contradicted Neman’s response to Swisher. Sweetgreen had lost $31 million in 2018. In fact, it has lost money every year since 2014. (The company declined to comment.) Investors don’t expect young, growing companies to be profitable, but Sweetgreen is already 14 years old.
Thanks to its cheerful, health-conscious branding and slick digital-ordering system, Sweetgreen has been viewed as an innovator since its earliest days, raising $478.6 million in venture capital over 15 funding rounds and opening new locations by the dozen. And all the while, it has been losing millions a year, with losses widening to $153 million in 2021.
The salad chain is just one of many companies that have been buoyed by so much VC funding that consumers assume they’re killing it. Customers have taken rides in venture capital-subsidized taxis, accessorized with VC-backed merino wool sneakers, slept on VC-endorsed sheets, and sipped VC-supported oat milk lattes.
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