With travel slowly recovering in the midst of the pandemic, there is tremendous pent-up demand and consumers are looking for discerning experiences. The hospitality industry has been ravaged by lockdowns and restrictions, leaving operators to maximize any and all revenue channels now and moving forward. In-room dining is one of the opportunities that’s poised for optimization. Butler Hospitality is the technology-driven turn-key solution that transforms the hotel dining experience through cloud kitchens for hotels. Butler Hospitality manages the operation of kitchens inside hotels, controlling everything from menu design to staffing, and prepares high-quality meals that are delivered by full-time, uniformed “Butlers” to guests at the property and to nearby hotels within 30 minutes. The meals are charged to the guest’s hotel folio and the hotel can completely offload the responsibility of hotel food and beverage operations. Properties that previously did not offer in-room dining can now seamlessly offer the option to elevate the guest experience. Butler currently operates in six markets across the country with plans to double its presence with this funding. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Tim Gjonbalic to learn more about how his experience as a restaurant operator inspired the business, Butler’s service and the pain points that it addresses, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Maywic Select Investments, Platform Ventures, and Mousse Partners.
Hospitality
Fiserv Acquires BentoBox as it Looks to Expand its Dining and Restaurant Capabilities
BentoBox, the end-to-end restaurant online management and marketing platform, has been acquired by Fiserv, the global fintech and payments company. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.
RecSpot Raises $200K for its Social Recommendation Platform
According to an analysis of Fakespot data, as much as 39% of online reviews and recommendations are fake. With an increasing number of bots, anonymous users, and incentivized reviews, would-be consumers are inundated with often inaccurate and unreliable information. RecSpot is a social recommendation platform that only displays recommendations from friends and trustworthy contacts. Users are able to curate their own personalized list in a centralized destination rather than sending individual messages and going through the disparate experience of visiting dozens of different channels. The company, which just launched, is focused on entertainment at launch, with recommendations focusing on television and film. The company will launch into new verticals including dining, hospitality, shopping, and more. The app is live and available for iOS and Android. AlleyWatch caught up with RecSpot Founder Ian O’Brien to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s strategic roadmap, recent round of funding, and much, much more.
CookUnity Raises $47M for its Meal Delivery Marketplace That Offers Gourmet Chef-Prepared Meals
The pandemic has made it easier to sit on the couch and order in without any guilt. But sometimes you want an elevated dining experience not found on Seamless or Uber Eats without having to go out to eat. CookUnity, founded in Brooklyn in 2018, brings gourmet meals from top and rising chefs in the culinary world to your home. Structured as a weekly subscription delivery service, the company offers over 300 meal options that start at a very reasonable $10.49 per meal. With the restaurant industry severely disrupted with lockdowns and fighting for survival, the service has been able to provide chefs much-needed income, expand their followings, and avoid onerous and debilitating fees of the traditional food delivery apps. In fact, top chefs on the platform are earning in excess of $1M per year on the platform. AlleyWatch caught up with CookUnity Founder and CEO Mateo Marietti to learn more about the company’s progress during the pandemic (the company grew 6.5x YOY), national expansion plans, restaurant recommendations, recent fundraise, from Insight Partners, Endeavor Capital, IDCV, Fuel Ventures, and Gaingels.
The Infatuation Acquired by JPMorgan Chase as the Bank Looks to Strengthen Relationships with Diners
The Infatuation, a media platform focused on restaurant discovery, is being acquired by JPMorgan Chase, as the bank looks to deepen its relationship with its customer base through dining. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Seek Raises $4M for its Consumer Leisure Social Recommendation Platform
Half of Americans rely on friends and family for restaurant recommendations but your inner circle may not have the same tastes as you. Some turn to social media to discover what influencers are recommending. Others are reliant on static review sites like Yelp. But lost in these exchanges is a centralized, trusted destination to organize and access consistent recommendations that are relevant to the specific user. Seek seeks to change this with its social recommendation platform that connects consumers with like-minded curators that provide recommendations across six different segments – restaurants, cafes and sweets, nightlife, attractions, events, and activities. Users can discover, save, and share consumer leisure recommendations from curators that share similar tastes rather than relying on anonymous reviews. The newly-launched platform, currently focused on NYC, is designed for curators to build audiences and interact with their followers, offering monetization options that preserve authenticity but also allow the curators to earn a living. AlleyWatch caught up with Cofounder and CEO Shanna Liu to learn more about the inspiration to build a social discovery platform for consumer leisure that actually works for users and curators, the company’s strategic plans, and recent round of funding from investors that include Valar Ventures, QED Investors, Western Technology Investment (WTI), Entree Capital, Breyer Capital, and Goodwater Capital.
Woodspoon Raises $14M for its Delivery Platform that Features Home Cooked Meals
New York is arguably home to the most diverse set of cuisines found anywhere. While there are thousands of restaurants offering various ethnic cuisines, what happens when you are feeling nostalgic and want a home-cooked meal? WoodSpoon is a delivery platform that connects diners with home chefs that prepare authentic ethnic dishes. Each chef on the platform is vetted before they are able to join the platform and diners are charged a nominal $.99 delivery fee for each delivery. Launched last year just as the pandemic made its way to our shores, WoodSpoon offered chefs an immediate opportunity to earn income as restaurants shuttered. Now live in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, the service has been growing 50% month-over-month recently with plans to expand to new markets in the near future. A quick look at the website shows that a diverse range of dishes are available like Massaman Shrimp, Tamago Sando, Berber, and Chicken Schnitzel, accurately reflecting the diversity of New York. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Oren Saar to learn more about how his founding team’s experiences inspired the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding from investors that include Restaurant Brands International (RBI), World Trade Ventures (WTV), and Victor Lazarte.
Munch Makes Selecting a Restaurant to Go to For a Group as Easy as Swiping Right
You have a group of friends that you want to go out to eat with but deciding where to go often takes significantly more time and energy than the actual dining experience. Munch is a dining discovery app that makes this process more seamless for groups to enjoy dining together. The app features a Tinderesque experience that allows a group of would-be group diners to swipe on restaurants that they would be interested in going to and comes up with matches that accommodate everyone in the group, taking into account cuisine preferences, location, and dietary restrictions. For restaurants, the app’s B2B platform serves as a data collection resource to understand their customers, develop customer segments, and also provides a promotion tool with advertising and offers capabilities built-in. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Chris DeSantis to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the state of the hospitality industry through lockdowns and the pandemic, the company’s future plans, and much, much more…
Mealco Raises $7M to Enable Chefs to Launch and Manage Virtual Restaurants Using Just a Phone
The pandemic has taken an unimaginable toll on the restaurant industry. Over 1000 restaurants have shuttered their doors permanently in NYC. Those in the industry have been forced to adapt and transform to survive. Innovation has come in many forms and virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens have proliferated. Mealco is the platform that allows chefs to quickly launch and manage high-quality virtual restaurants without the upfront costs of operating a physical space. The startup, founded in 2019, operates several kitchens throughout the city and chefs are able to manage delivery-first brands without even stepping foot into a kitchen; everything can be managed via the platform’s backend. Customers are able to order directly from the Mealco consumer platform or on one of their preferred dining apps. AlleyWatch caught up with Founder and CEO Daniel Simon to learn more about how his experience working in restaurants as a student inspired the business, the impact the pandemic has had on the business and industry, the company’s latest round of funding from investors that include Rucker Park Capital, FJLabs, Reshape, 2048.vc, Oceans Ventures, and Jonathan Zabusky.
SALIDO Acquired by North American Bancard
SALIDO, the restaurant management platform, has been acquired by Michigan-based North American Bancard, the electronic payment processor. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Odeko Raises $12M to Help Small Cafés and Local Eateries Streamline Supply Chains
In the wake of the pandemic small neighborhood coffee shops, bakeries, and cafes had to scramble to adopt mobile ordering and needed to place an emphasis on managing their supply chain to ensure survival. Odeko is the simple-to-use technology platform that allowed them to do both and quickly. CEO Dane Atkinson shares some insight on the company, its mission-driven purpose enabling neighborhood businesses to compete with the larger chains, and recent round of funding from investors that include GGV Capital, First Round, Primary Venture Partners, Box Group, Addition Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and Y Combinator.