Ritual: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

Category: restaurants, food, and local commerce
Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
Last updated: 2026-09-25

Founders, executives and investors

Ray Reddy and Larry Stinson founded Ritual in 2014, three years after Google bought their previous startup, PushLife, according to the Globe; both had worked at BlackBerry. TechCrunch named Robert Kim as a third founder. Reddy was chief executive.

In June 2018 the company raised $70 million in a round led by Georgian Partners, with existing investors Greylock Partners, Insight Ventures and Mistral Venture Partners taking part, TechCrunch reported. The Globe put Ritual's venture funding at US$120 million in its first four years, and its valuation at more than US$300 million by late 2019.

Business before the pandemic

A user picked a nearby restaurant, ordered food or coffee in the app and walked over to collect it. Ritual's distinctive feature was "piggybacking": coworkers could add their items to someone else's order, and whoever went out brought everything back. Reddy told TechCrunch that about 44,500 teams used the app and that the company had started by designing for the 300 people in a single office building and "the 12 or 14 spots within a five minute walk" of it. By 2019, the Globe reported, more than 10,000 restaurants in 50 cities used Ritual, and the company was on track to be profitable by 2021.

What the pandemic changed

Layoffs.fyi reported that the April 2, 2020 cut of 196 employees reached all departments, mostly at the Toronto headquarters but also at U.S. locations, including Chicago and New York. Business, it said, "was severely impacted by restaurants closing down and people working from home." The Globe put the layoffs at 181 people, more than half the staff, and said Ritual pulled out of Europe within weeks. That spring Ritual raised another US$22 million, led by Georgian at a lower valuation, and worked with the City of Toronto to help food-service businesses move online.

For restaurants, Ritual's partner page, as archived by the Wayback Machine on May 23, 2020, offered a new product, Ritual ONE, at a standard price of $69 a month per location. Restaurants that signed up by June 1 were promised it "free for life," with no commission or monthly subscription fees on Ritual ONE orders. The same page kept the other meters running: "Standard credit card processing fees apply," and access to Ritual's marketplace customers and loyalty program cost extra. The offer was limited to existing partners and to new restaurants in Ritual's "serviceable neighborhoods," and "Limited quantity available, conditions apply." The page gave June 8 as the launch date. A Chicago version of the page gave restaurants until July 10, against a Growth plan price of $49 a month. By September Ritual's FAQ described Ritual ONE as commission-free online ordering for a restaurant's own website and social media, at a standard price of $49 a month.

Later versions were tied to places. Ritual's Mississauga page offered the subscription free for life to restaurants that enrolled by September 15, 2020. Its Oakville and Region of Durham pages waived the subscription, card processing (normally 2.8% + $0.20) and setup (normally $99+) through 2020. A Durham restaurant that completed one DoorDash Drive delivery order in 2020 would get the subscription free through 2021, though "credit card processing fees still apply." On orders from the Ritual app marketplace, the page said, "Standard commission applies." Pages for Markham and Kingston branded the offer "Open for Business" and named the City of Markham, and Tourism Kingston and Downtown Kingston!, as partners. Their terms gave restaurants that completed one DoorDash Drive order by the end of 2020 a $0 subscription through 2021, and made them responsible for transaction fees again from January 1, 2021.

In Britain, a London page offered pubs and restaurants "0% commissions and £0 subscription fees until 2021." A Milton Keynes page waived the £39 monthly subscription, card processing fees and the £100 setup fee until the end of January 2021. A 2020 Ritual blog post pitched Ritual ONE to U.K. pubs and restaurants facing a 10 p.m. curfew, table-service-only rules and a new legal requirement to collect customer details for what the post called "NHS Track & Trace." It called the pricing "commission-free for life," put Ritual ONE at £39 a month and offered restaurants that signed up in 2020 their first month free and no card fees for the rest of the year.

The largest sums came with PayPal. Ritual's Los Angeles page said PayPal and Ritual had "collaborated to invest one million dollars in the form of customer discounts" at enrolled restaurants from November 16 to December 31, 2020, in a program it called "City of Los Angeles endorsed." The offer was open to new Los Angeles merchants that signed up for Ritual ONE, with subscription, processing and setup fees waived through 2020. A New York page, run with PayPal and the state's Empire State Digital initiative, promised another $1 million in customer discounts for February and March 2021. It waived fees for merchants that enrolled by March 31, 2021, and extended the offer to April 30 "if at least 2,500 new merchants sign up to join Ritual by March 31, 2021." Neither page says how the money was split between PayPal and Ritual, and none of the Ritual pages states what the fee waivers cost the company.

Reopening in 2021 brought one more version. A Ritual page archived in June 2021 said the company was partnering with the City of Markham as restaurants welcomed outdoor diners back in Step One of Ontario's reopening plan. It offered contact tracing through AllChecked.in (CAD $9 a month) and Ritual Online Ordering (CAD $69 a month) for CAD $0, quoted Mayor Frank Scarpitti, and listed the Ritual app at "Under 10% commission on app orders." In a note on a later brand refresh, chief executive Ray Reddy wrote that "throughout the pandemic" Ritual had rolled out "commission-free solutions like online ordering and digital menu creation" and "free access to QR code menus, contact tracing, turnkey marketing solutions, contactless payment solutions, and more." He said Ritual would think "less about Ritual as a restaurant collective" and more about individual restaurants. By October 2021 Ritual's blog was offering "10 x $1,000 to local restos and coffee shops who were hit hard during the pandemic," with winners to be drawn on November 1.

After the first shock

The business kept shrinking. The Globe reported that Ritual cut its staff to fewer than 50 people and that revenue fell to US$11 million in 2021, US$8.4 million in 2023 and US$3.9 million in the first half of 2024, with cash down to US$4.6 million by mid-2024. Those figures came from documents Georgian, which had invested US$54.4 million in Ritual, distributed to its own investors.

Since 2025

On January 13, 2025 the Globe reported that Reddy and Stinson were leaving, with "several amazing members" of Ritual's research and development team, to join Shopify, where Reddy would become vice-president of retail on its point-of-sale product. Reddy said Ritual would continue under new leadership and that he would remain a board member and adviser. Three people familiar with the matter told the Globe that some investors called the move an "acqui-hire"; two said a separate sale of Ritual as a going concern was under way, with at least two buyers in due diligence. As of June 2026, Ritual's website still offered the order-ahead app to customers ("order ahead and skip the line") and online-ordering tools to restaurants.

Ritual Profile: Pandemic Layoffs, Business Model, and Current Status

Founders, executives and investors

Business before the pandemic

What the pandemic changed

After the first shock

Since 2025

Sources