Overview
The Rounds delivered household staples on a recurring schedule and collected empty containers for reuse. Founded in 2019 by Alex Torrey and Byungwoo Ko, the Philadelphia startup combined grocery replenishment with a return route for packaging. It expanded into other U.S. cities and raised venture funding to develop the service.[1] [2]
In May 2025, online grocer Misfits Market announced that it had acquired The Rounds. Customers were offered a transition to Misfits Market, whose own packaging return program differed from the original refill service. The price and financial return were not disclosed.[3] [4]
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Founding Story
Torrey told Fast Company that years living in a city apartment without a car made buying bulky household basics inconvenient. He also noticed the packaging around repeat online purchases. The Rounds combined those problems into one service: schedule the delivery of regularly used goods and collect the empty containers on the next visit.[5]
Ko, the company's co-founder and operations leader, told PBS he wanted to make a more sustainable routine convenient. Torrey described a small first pilot with five members and about a dozen products. Monthly refills, he said, were the wrong cadence, and the team adjusted its containers and service. He described early growth as “very, very slow” over many months.[1]
The founders recruited early customers in apartment buildings. Torrey told PBS, “We started with apartment buildings.” The team visited lobbies and explained the service in person. This concentrated the first deliveries and gave the founders direct feedback, although the interview does not measure the cost of acquiring those customers.[1]
Timeline
- 2019: The Rounds began delivering household essentials on a refill model.[2]
- 2022: It reported operations in several cities and announced a Series A led by Redpoint Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.[5] [6]
- 2024: The company announced a $24 million Series B and added features for scheduling household restocks.[7]
- 2025: Misfits Market announced its acquisition and moved The Rounds customers toward its own service.[3]
What They Built
Members selected household products and received regular deliveries. A courier brought refills and collected empty containers, which the company could clean and reuse. Fast Company described electric-bike deliveries and glass jars for many staples. The model required The Rounds to coordinate inventory, delivery, collection, cleaning, and the next refill, rather than treat packaging as a one-way shipment.[5]
The company also worked upstream with suppliers. In a PBS interview, Ko described Philadelphia coffee supplier Bean2Bean sending beans in reusable jugs, collecting the empties, and refilling them. The Rounds used a similar return loop with members. That partnership addressed packaging before the final customer delivery as well as after it.[1]
By 2024, users could adjust the frequency of recurring deliveries. Torrey told TechCrunch the company used information from container returns as one signal for predicting household consumption. That was the company's description of its method; the sources do not independently establish its prediction accuracy.[7]
Market Position
Target Customers
The first customers were urban apartment residents buying recurring staples. Concentrating visits in buildings and neighborhoods made it possible to combine deliveries with return collection. The company later also pursued relationships with multifamily operators and corporate sites.[1] [3]
Market Size
The available sources do not establish the market size for scheduled reusable-container delivery. Household grocery spending is a much broader category and does not show how many customers would accept a fixed delivery day or return empty containers.
Competition
Supermarkets, online grocery services, and delivery platforms all sell overlapping essentials. The Rounds differed in its scheduled return loop rather than in ownership of the products themselves. After the acquisition, Misfits Market offered its own grocery service and packaging return program. Its customer communication said the experience would not be identical to The Rounds' refillable-container service.[4]
Business Model
The Rounds sold household goods through a recurring delivery service. Its route had to collect containers as well as drop off purchases; cleaning, handling, delivery density, and customer returns therefore mattered to the economics. The reviewed sources do not disclose contribution margin, actual container return rate, or profit per route, so the environmental and financial benefit of reuse cannot be calculated from the public counts alone.
Gunderson Dettmer, which represented the company, reported a $38 million Series A in 2022. Fast Company reported a $42 million round around the same period. The two figures are not reconciled in the available evidence; the law firm's figure is used for the documented Series A.[6] [5]
Traction
Fast Company reported that The Rounds operated in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, and Atlanta in 2022. In 2024 TechCrunch described availability in select markets including Atlanta, D.C., and Philadelphia. These lists describe reported service areas at different times, not proof that every area had the same coverage or route economics.[5] [7]
Outcome and evolution
A return route created both value and work
The delivery visit carried two jobs: bring the next goods and collect the previous containers. That design could make reuse easier for customers, but it also required containers to come back and enter a cleaning and refill process. The 2019 pilot's incorrect monthly cadence shows that the service had to fit household consumption as well as the company's route schedule. The sources do not disclose whether the resulting system was profitable.[1]
Misfits acquired the customer relationships
Misfits Market said the acquisition would add household products and corporate and multifamily partnerships to its grocery business. TechCrunch reported plans to take on more than 250 inventory items and offer The Rounds' customers a credit and a year of Misfits+. The buyer declined to disclose terms.[3] [8]
The transition did not preserve every feature unchanged. On Misfits' announcement page, a customer asked about jar collection; the company's response said the experience would differ. Misfits described its own packaging return program, but the source does not establish that The Rounds' original jar refill loop continued.[4]
Key Lessons
- Density supports a two-way route. The first apartment-building focus put customers close together, where the same visit could deliver goods and collect empties.
- A schedule must match consumption. Torrey said the initial monthly refill cadence was wrong; the company changed it after its five-member pilot.
- Reuse requires operations at both ends. Bean2Bean's reusable supply jugs connected supplier pickup with customer-container returns, adding handling work as well as reducing disposable packaging.
- A successor may change the service. Misfits acquired the business and transitioned customers, but said its experience would differ from the original refill loop.