ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - n°158 - Janvier/Février 2015 - 30

ITINÉRAIRES

Stephen LEGUILLON (11)

La Belle Assiette
La Belle Assiette is a service which allows you to book online a private Chef
that will cook and serve a quality meal in your home. Launched in March 2013,
by two Alumni ESCP Europe, the start-up announced a new $1.7M investment
round. Stephen LEGUILLON, La Belle Assiette's CEO, answers a few questions
and talks about the company's story.
What is your business model?
We take a commission off each booking before
paying the Chefs. It is a fair model. We like to say
that La Belle Assiette manages all the business
sides, so Chef can focus on the cooking!
Before La Belle Assiette, the market for this service didn't really exist. It was very fragmented, each
Chef ran his/her own micro business and there
were neither standards nor customer service.
La Belle Assiette structured the market. We can
now send a Chef with a 24hrs notice, anywhere
in France, Beligum, Switzerland, Luxembourg and
the UK.

Our concept is to send a chef to cook quality meals, directly in «your» kitchen.

How did you come up with the idea?
When we started La Belle Assiette (www.labelleassiette.com), we knew one thing: we wanted to
build a food service that work with independent
Chefs as suppliers. But that can mean many things
(food delivery, running a new model of restaurants,
competing with caterers...). We tested different
models for a year and landed on the concept of
sending Chefs to cook quality meals, directly in
«your» kitchen. The fit between this service and the
market was very good. In March 2013, we decided
to focus on it. We have since then grown from 10
Chefs in Paris to 400 in 5 countries, now serving
thousands of customers.
Timing was also important. When we started, the
private Chef concept was booming. It was driven
by growing consumer interest in knowing more
about Chefs, thanks to TV shows like Top Chef.

You just raised a new investment round.
How did investors react during this
troubled economic context?
Indeed, we recently closed a new round for $1.7
million. We focused on investors who master similar business models to ours. This was a seed round,
so we didn't involve institutional investors. 13 business angels joined us, including top entrepreneurs
like Nicolas Brusson (founder of BlaBlaCar) and
Thibaud Eliziere (founder of Fotolia). It is actually
a fantastic time to be an entrepreneur and the
market is good for fundraising. Being based in
France complicates the process, as the investment eco-system is not as developed. So, I went
abroad to find investors, throughout Europe and
the US. These new partners will also help a lot as
we expand abroad.
We pitched our vision of the future of the market.
Investors were excited by our past performance.
We had previously raised a total of $500K and
have built an effective platform, a dynamic young
team, a strong business volume and a community
of nearly 400 Chefs working with us. If you believe
in the market, it was easy to want to invest!
What are your plans for development?
It is in La Belle Assiette's DNA to be international.
So, we're going to start by becoming a European
leader!
●
Interviewed by Nicole Gérald

- ESCP Europe Magazine N° 158 - Janvier/Février 2015

http://www.labelleassiette.com http://www.labelleassiette.com

ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - n°158 - Janvier/Février 2015

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