UPDATED: Basil Street Pizza Selling Off its Assets

COVID and time consuming crowdfunding forced the company to cease operations.

It looks like Basil Street Pizza, which makes an automated pizza vending machine, is shutting down. I emailed Basil Street Co-Founder and CEO Deglin Kenealy this morning and received the following auto-reply:

Thanks for your message. Basil Street Cafe is currently seeking qualified individuals or groups interested in acquiring company assets. If you are interested in purchasing assets of the company, please contact it’s Chief Restructuring Officer, Jeff Klemp…

The company’s crowdfunding campaign page on SeedInvest, where it was looking to raise $20 million, is also no longer active, and if you Google “Basil Street Pizza,” the results say “Temporarily Closed.” Basil Street had raised $10 million in traditional funding in March 2020. Basil Street had also partnered with Prepango to place pizza vending machines in airports.

UPDATE: I spoke with Jeff Klemp, Chief Restructuring Officer (former COO) of Basil Street.

Basil Street currently has 12 revenue generating units in the field including at airports, military bases and hospitals.

There were two main factors that forced the closure of the company. First, COVID delayed component manufacturing out of China by eight months. Second, getting through regulatory compliance issues around crowdfunding took longer than anticipated and the company basically lost a year of investment. The combination of those factors ended Basil Street’s runway and the board decided to shift operations to an asset sale.

If you are looking to buy a pizza vending machine company, you can email Klemp directly at jeff@eatbasilstreet.com.

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