Boxed broadens fresh delivery, dark-store fulfillment capabilities

Membership-free, big box e-tailer Boxed is looking to speed up the delivery of its own brand and branded assortment and broaden its reach of fresh food delivery.

The company has acquired MaxDelivery, an on-demand grocery delivery service in New York. Boxed said it has acquired the company to replicate and expand the model into additional markets.

MaxDelivery offers one-hour delivery service in Manhattan, processing approximately 2 million orders to date. The company differentiates itself from other ultrafast delivery businesses due to its high average order values of approximately $100 and all of its employees are full time W-2s, as opposed to 1099 contractors. 

Through the acquisition, Boxed will broaden its capabilities in micro dark-store fulfillment and rapid on-demand grocery delivery, the company said. Boxed customers in select markets will also get “a significantly expanded fresh assortment” offering. MaxDelivery will also become a client of Boxed’s Software & Services, adopting its proprietary commerce technology to help enable scalability of its operations, and expansion into additional markets over time.

Chieh Huang, co-founder and CEO, Boxed, said, “This acquisition of MaxDelivery will mark our entry point into the rapidly growing fast-grocery delivery space, in addition to broadening our capabilities in micro dark-store fulfillment and fresh supply chain. Boxed customers have expressed how they value fresh groceries and we are excited to be able to deliver a more comprehensive product offering while benefiting from a complimentary business model with similarly high average order values as Boxed. In the months after closing, we plan to implement MaxDelivery’s model into several additional regions as we generate value for the entire Boxed ecosystem. We believe that MaxDelivery will also benefit from the use of Boxed software technology as it becomes a client of our software business.”

Chris Siragusa, founder, president and CTO of MaxDelivery will join Boxed’s senior leadership team as SVP, operations.

“Empowering New Yorkers to get their fresh groceries online has been our vision since our inception and with Boxed’s support, we will be able to replicate our highly scalable, profitable model into several new markets,” Siragusa said. “We are thrilled to become a part of a company that is poised for success, led by an exceptional management team, and has a proven commitment to ESG. We are looking forward to becoming a part of the Boxed family.”