Brooklyn startups are continuing to attract serious investor interest by directly connecting eaters to meals and chefs online.

“I think technology has been kind of late to come to food,” said Adam Sirois, of Dumbo-based Underground Eats, tells Crain’s New York Business. “It’s one of the last major categories that developers and coders are starting to explore.”

Crain’s details three which have been garnering much attention:

• Blue Apron

Williamsburg-based Blue Apron announced a $3 million Series A funding round in February, with investors including First Round Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Dave Tisch, who manages early-stage investment fund BoxGroup.

Blue Apron delivers prepackaged kits containing the ingredients needed to prepare a gourmet meal. The idea is partly to make ingredient shopping more efficient—no more ending up with too much leftover parsley—but also to introduce at-home cooks to unique recipes and hard-to-find ingredients, said CEO and co-founder Matt Salzberg.

“That’s an important part of our product,” Mr. Salzberg said. “It’s an experience, not just a convenience.”

• Kitchensurfing

Gowanus-based Kitchensurfing raised $1 million late in 2012 and this year expanded from New York City and Berlin into Boston.

Kitchensurfing brings chefs directly into subscribers’ kitchens. Customers can purchase catered meals starting at about $20 per person or place their own requests and receive proposals from Kitchensurfing chefs. After chef and customer agree on a plan, the chef shows up with the ingredients, then cooks and cleans up.

CEO and co-founder Chris Muscarella, a tech and food industry vet, says he sees two trends in food. Restaurants are trying to put diners closer to the chef via open kitchen designs and special events. “Kitchensurfing takes that to its utmost extreme,” Mr. Muscarella said.

The second trend is based on convenience. Customers are looking for one-click, online access to food delivery. But a bespoke dining experience can actually be facilitated surprisingly quickly, Mr. Muscarella said. In some cases, meals have been arranged in as little as a day.

• Underground Eats

Mr. Sirois’ Underground Eats, which has four employees, opted to forgo outside funding after meeting with early-stage investors last year, he said. However, the company exceeded 20,000 subscribers in January, roughly one year after launching. It plans to double its small staff over the next year.

Brooklyn seems to be the heart of the growing tech-food scene. The city’s Food+Tech Meetup group—which started in Brooklyn—has more than 800 members and hosts regular discussions running the gamut from e-commerce to sustainability.

“I think it’s the fact that in Brooklyn you’re surrounded by food thinking,” said Elizabeth McVay Greene, a founder of the Food+Tech Meetup as well as Plovgh, which allows consumers to buy produce directly from nearby farms. “And there are also the technologists and designers who can, in 48 hours, put an app together.”

That being said, the food space is complex, and industry experience outside the traditional tech space is invaluable, said Ms. Greene.

“I see a lot of people building restaurant apps and websites for agriculture, but you can’t just build an Etsy for food,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of companies come and go.”

The fundamental problem with scaling up a high-end food-based business is the artisanal nature of food. If you build a food operation on the scale of Costco, it tastes like food from Costco.

On the other hand, meeting that challenge is easier in the tight confines of New York City.

“Food in New York City is kind of the ultimate pursuit,” Ms. Greene said. “It’s the coolest thing you can do, and now technology is right up there with it. So the combination is appealing.”