Superorder – the first all-in-one delivery and takeout operating system for restaurants – recently announced the close of a $10 million Series A and angel funding round led by Foundation Capital with participation from investors like Michael Seibel (Managing Director of Y Combinator), Kyle Vogt (Cofounder CEO Cruise), Daniel Kan (Cofounder Cruise), Jon Swanson (Chairman Thumbtack), James Beshara (Founder MagicMind) and I2BF Global Ventures. And the company also launched a selection of generative AI and order management tools designed to drive restaurants’ profitability from online sales, which includes the fastest AI-powered website builder for restaurants. The funding round follows a period of consistent growth for the company and its recent rebrand from its previous name, Forward Kitchens, marking a significant milestone in its expansion to become the one-stop shop for online delivery and restaurant takeout management.
The company works with over 1,500 restaurants today in 180+ cities, providing them with solutions that help them grow revenue from delivery and takeout with virtual brands. And Superorder enables them to run smoother shifts with order management, automate their marketing and manage their financials more effectively. Plus, restaurants rely on Superorder’s proprietary AI algorithms, which identify unmet needs in their market, to maximize revenue and profit for their virtual brands. Superorder also consolidates all orders from all platforms into a single system, which saves time, reduces errors, and improves efficiency.
Superorder’s new tools will enable restaurants to capitalize on the increasingly growing delivery market, which is expected to reach nearly $270 billion in revenue in the U.S. alone this year. They include the following:
1.) AI-powered Website Builder – Restaurants can now build a website through a search-based interface by typing in a query like “Build me a website for an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles” and picking a design template. And it allows owners to easily edit and build the website using the restaurant’s existing menu and photos or AI-generated images and menus. With this new tool, restaurant owners without extensive technical skills can easily and quickly build well-designed websites to increase their online sales.
2.) AI Images and Menus – Restaurants can create compelling food imagery assets by quickly matching item menu descriptions, automating photo creation and editing, eliminating manual photoshoots, and saving valuable time for operators. In addition to photography, they can also craft well-written, creative, and accurate menu descriptions and item names with a simple click. This innovative technology empowers restaurants to easily create new and unique menus on demand, streamlining the menu development process.
3.) Order Management – Restaurants now see more than 50% of their business come from digital platforms. Before Superorder, they are dedicating time from their short-handed staff to manage three or more different ordering systems. Now, orders from all online platforms can flow into a single system, thereby saving time, reducing errors and improving efficiency.
4.) Automated Marketing – Sophisticated online marketers use tools to run advertising copy, pricing, and images. Restaurateurs had limited ability or time to ensure their menus were accurately represented across various online ordering platforms. Superorder puts online marketing on auto-pilot by synchronizing menus across various platforms and optimizing menu item prices, descriptions, and imagery to improve conversion rates and sales.
5.) Financial Management – Restaurants with significant digital sales struggle to get full visibility into their revenue, fees, and marketing spend across all delivery platforms. And Superorder’s ledger and payments technology automatically reconciles every sale across platforms, identifies potential errors, and distributes payments faster. It also allows them to monitor and manage payment schedules according to their preferred cadence (including daily payments), granting greater flexibility and understanding of their financial operations.
Superorder was founded in 2019 by Raghav Poddar – who studied at Columbia University. And Poddar conceptualized the company as part of the Y Combinator Summer 2019 cohort after seeing the lack of quality online presence from the restaurants he loved ordering from. In 2021, Superorder announced a $2.5 million seed round, which was utilized to expand the company’s footprint and to hire a team in operations, sales, and engineering to help support the initial product. With a growing team of over 70+ employees, Superorder aims to use the new funding to expand.
KEY QUOTES:
“For most restaurants, digital revenue is becoming an increasingly larger share of their business, making tools like third-party delivery platforms, virtual restaurants, and online ordering imperative in order to compete and remain successful. In the same way that it’s largely illogical not to use Shopify when building an e-commerce store, a simple, consolidated, and automated platform to run all delivery and takeout revenue will become the obvious choice for any restaurant. Superorder’s mission is to simplify tech adoption to give restaurant owners time to invest in their core business, which is cooking great food.”
– Raghav Poddar, CEO of Superorder
“With convenient digital delivery and take-out driving an ever-growing share of restaurant sales, Superorder helps restaurateurs accelerate profitable growth while running a smoother operation. Having founded and grown a restaurant tech company earlier in my career, I was especially excited to invest in Superorder, which is leading the next generation of technology to help local restaurants succeed and grow.”
– Angus Davis, General Partner at Foundation Capital
