Startups

It looks like Zoomer is shutting down

CEO Justin Goldman declined to comment but a high-ranking former exec's LinkedIn said the company was dissolving come February.

An ad for Zoomer's delivery service in New Brunswick. (Photo by Juliana Reyes)

From the look of things, Navy Yard-based B2B food delivery company Zoomer is shutting down.

Alan Preston, head of people operations at the company since last August, left the company in January 2017, according to his LinkedIn. In the description of his position at the venture-backed company, a succinct line read: “Company is dissolving in February 2017.”

We haven’t been able to independently confirm the news.

Preston declined to comment on the statement, as did CEO Justin Goldman. Via text message, the founder told Technical.ly: “For now I’m required to report no comment.”

Up until Jan 24, the company had kept a running recruiting ad on Craigslist. No more ads have been posted since. There are no open jobs posted on the company’s career page.

Zoomer has raised money from local investors DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg and First Round Capital, by way of the StartUp PHL fund, which means that the city’s Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation was also an investor. The prestigious West Coast Y Combinator accelerator is also among the backers of the company — a rarity among Philadelphia tech startups.

At our last Zoomer check-in, the company had passed the 100-employee mark (though it wasn’t clear if that number included drivers or not). Here’s VP of Operations Scott Hillyer speaking at Founder Factory about the company’s early years. The company was also featured in First Round’s recent holiday video.

Zoomer has long kept a low profile, ever since 2014, when it first appeared on our radar. In years past, Goldman politely but consistently declined interviews as we watched the company grow and spotted Zoomer cars across the city. It’s not clear how many markets it was in, though we spotted an ad in a restaurant window in New Brunswick, N.J., last week and found year-old job postings for markets as far-reaching as Madison, Wis., Ithaca, N.Y., and Boston.

Zoomer also amassed an impressive talent pool from other local startups, from Cloudamize’s former director of operations Hillyer, Monetate’s former enterprise sales director Rob Falcone, eMoney Advisor’s former SVP of Engineering Jon Wagner and Preston, a Philly tech industry vet who was director of human resources at eBay, once the company acquired Half.com.

We’ll keep you posted.

Companies: Zoomer / First Round Capital

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

Our services Preferred partners The journalism fund
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

Silicon Valley venture firm launches ‘Rising America’ fund to back diverse founders

Why are there so few tech apprenticeships?

Philly’s RealLIST startups are split on the remote versus hybrid work debate

Philly’s tech and innovation ecosystem runs on collaboration 

Technically Media