YC-Backed Food Delivery App BiteSight is Leveraging TikTok Virality to Drive User Growth

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Published by Stephen Oluwadara at July 29, 2025

Meet The Disruptive Food Delivery Startup

BiteSight is a New York-based food delivery startup that’s reimagining how users discover and order food. Launched in 2023 by Lucious McDaniel IV and Zac Schulwolf, the company is driving food delivery from static menu images to mouth-watering videos and pictures.

The Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort startup enables people to connect with friends and create a personalized food court, which compiles their favorite spots. Envisioned as “TikTok meets DoorDash,” the platform directly addresses a significant pain point in the market: popular food delivery apps, while functional for known orders, make it challenging to discover new dishes or restaurants due to generic stock images and inflated ratings.

BiteSight solves this problem by enabling you to scroll through short videos and photos from some of the best real spots in New York City. You can see what your friends are eating, rating, and loving, and share in their food experiences. You can also personalize your food preferences by bookmarking your cravings and ranking your favorite places. Additionally, you can build a hit list of must-try bites and share it with your circle.

This model empowers users to discover new dishes and restaurants through high-quality, mouthwatering videos, fostering a more enjoyable, trustworthy, and personalized culinary journey.

How BiteSight Leveraged Social Media Virality to Drive User Growth

BiteSight’s viral ascent began in June 2024. The idea for pitching on social media came from watching a friend partake in the same internet trend for his dating app. “It got over a million views, and he suggested I try it for BiteSight.”

So his sister, Kendall McDaniel, created a TikTok video asking viewers to pay attention to his presentation of the app. “I built this app, and it’s like TikTok meets Doordash,” McDaniel IV said on the video. “You can scroll on videos of food and anything you see, you can actually order and get it delivered, like right to your door.

Within 15 minutes after the video was released, the app reached number 18 overall in the Apple App Store and number two briefly in the food and beverage category, bypassing Uber Eats, Starbucks, and even McDonald’s.

Furthermore, it garnered almost 4 million likes on TikTok, a quarter of a million on Instagram, a rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 from over 1,200 reviews, and a 714% increase in user growth.

“What made our video stand out was that what we are building resonates,” said McDaniel IV to TechCrunch. He added that “it’s clear that consumers, and especially Gen Z, are ready for something that feels fresh and built for the way they engage.”

Although it is only available in New York at the moment, people in other cities have started messaging for a nationwide release. In a follow-up TikTok video, McDaniel IV shared the most requested cities for expansion: Altadena, CA; Joliet, IL; Massapequa, NY; Kissimmee, FL; and Plano, TX.

Navigating The Fundraising Journey For BiteSight

The journey to launch wasn’t without its challenges for BiteSight. In a video, McDaniel IV opened up about the difficulties of raising their first round of funding.

Despite facing numerous rejections, he and his team successfully navigated over a hundred meetings with investors in just one to two weeks. Eventually, their efforts paid off, and they found an investor who believed in their vision and provided $50,000 in funding after just a 15-minute call.

McDaniel IV summed up his experience into three key lessons for other founders in the video. First, he emphasized the pertinency of having a clear and compelling story that extends beyond the product.

For many investors, especially at the seed stage, the decision usually comes down to belief in the person behind the business as much as the business itself. “At the seed stage, many investors are looking to bet on you as a founder,” he said.

He also stressed the value of repetition. The first five to 20 pitches were “really bad,” he said, but after dozens of meetings, he refined his delivery, improved his presence, and was able to identify what resonated with investors and what didn’t.

Finally, he emphasized the importance of building momentum and creating a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out), which makes investors feel like they’re missing out if they don’t back you.

So far, BiteSight has successfully raised a total of $1.5 million in funding over one pre-seed round. Y Combinator and SurgePoint Capital supported the round.

Main Image: Zac Schulwolf and Lucious McDaniel IV, BiteSight Cofounders. Image Credit: BiteSight