Door to Door Organics shuts down suddenly

The Amazon-Whole Foods merger appears to have claimed its first victim.

Door to Door Organics abruptly closed on Friday, citing financing difficulties in the wake of “recent events in the online grocery industry.”

In a recent interview with SN, Mike Demko, who had joined the online subscription-delivery service as CEO earlier this year, said Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods had created “a lot of uncertainty for investors in this space.”

“I get how it certainly makes some investors nervous,” he said.

Louisville, Colo.-based Door to Door, founded in 1997, had been in the midst of a $20 million Series C round of funding when it was shut down. It was also planning to begin a test of delivery via UPS that was to have greatly expanded its reach.

The company, which had acquired Relay Foods in the Mid-Atlantic region last year, had also recently hired Peapod veteran Scott DeGraeve as chief operating officer to help oversee planned expansion.

It was not clear what would become of the company’s assets, which include a fleet of trucks that had been operating from four distribution centers around the country.

A spokeswoman for Door to Door issued the following prepared statement:

“Since 1997, Door to Door Organics has been committed to providing healthy, organic food to its customers. It is with a heavy heart that Door to Door Organics ceased operations on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017. It is challenging to point to one thing that led Door to Door Organics to make this decision. Ultimately, the timing of recent events in the online grocery industry, as well as the impact that had on our funding prospects, was not in Door to Door Organics favor.”

Neither Door to Door nor its parent company, New York-based investment firm Arlon Group, was available for further comment.

On the company’s website, Door to Door also apologized for shutting down the week before Thanksgiving, as many of its customers were presumably anticipating deliveries of holiday meal ingredients.