Cooking site Food52 raises $2M to expand publishing, mobile and shopping initiatives

March 28, 2013: 04:06 PM ET

(gigaom.com) -- Food52, the crowdsourced cooking website cofounded by former New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, has raised $2 million in Series A funding, the company announced on its blog Wednesday.

The round was led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and included participation from Vocap Ventures, Zelkova Ventures and Gary Vaynerchuk. Lerer Ventures, 15 Angels and investor Joanne Wilson, who had also participated in the company’s $750,000 seed round in 2010, contributed to this round as well.

Betabeat actually reported the news about the funding round back in January when a Series D form was filed with the SEC.

On the Food52 blog, Hesser and Stubbs write about their plans for the funding:

“Over the next year, we’ll be improving our user experience for all mobile devices. We have a great new shop, unlike any other, in the works. And we’ll be expanding our publishing platform through an innovative partnership with Random House, Inc., which publishes renowned food writers Ina Garten, Alice Waters, and Yotam Ottolenghi.”

Food52 has already published two cookbooks with HarperCollins’ William Morrow. Hesser said that the company will have more to share about its new publishing plans soon.

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