Greenville, N.C.-born Jimmy Donaldson has morphed into MrBeast, a 22-year-old YouTube star with 63 million subscribers. In December 2020, he told his followers โI literally just opened 300 restaurants all across America.โ He was referring to the launch of a virtual restaurant chain called MrBeast Burger. In just two months, his virtual restaurant chain sold more than 1 million sandwiches.
That was made possible by a Los Angeles-based startup, called Virtual Dining Concepts. The concept behind this new of business resembles that of โghost kitchens,โ and is instrumental in the emergence of ghost franchises, like HotBox by Wizโ from rapper Wiz Khalifa, which is โghostedโ by Denver-based Nextbite. The parent company of Nextbite, another pioneer of the virtual franchise model, received $120 million in venture-capital funding for its 13 virtual brands.
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