Easy Eat AI, a Singapore-based startup seeking to “turn restaurants into technology companies,” announced today that it has raised $ 5 million in funding. Easy Eat AI provides an operating system for restaurants to digitize all parts of their business, from inventory to customer orders to delivery, and get AI-based data analytics to drive sales.
Many food and beverage companies have started digitizing orders and payments in order to be able to offer deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Easy Eat AI Restaurants allows integration with third-party food ordering apps, it also has its own delivery infrastructure, including on-demand drivers, that costs just 4% per order, compared to the 20-30% that many of the largest spend Calculate food delivery platforms.
Founded in 2019 by Mohd Wassem, Rhythm Gupta and Abdul Khalid, Easy Eat AI currently has offices in Malaysia and plans to expand into other Southeast Asian markets. The financing included the participation of Aroa Ventures, the family office of OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal; Reddy Futures Family Office; Prophetic ventures; Maninder Gulati, OYO’s Global Chief Strategy Officer; Cem Garih, managing partner of Alarko Ventures; and Esas Ventures founder and managing partner Fethi Sabancı Kamışlı.
Wassem told TechCrunch that Easy Eat AI was developed because although Southeast Asia “is a food paradise, everyone eats out, food is a culture here,” the digital restaurant industry is still one of the least advanced. Before the pandemic, he said about 80% of the restaurant business came from personal eating, but manually taking orders resulted in very little data being stored about who the customers are, what they like to order, or how often they return .
Easy Eat AI’s platform helps restaurants establish this digital connection with their customers. His clients include chains such as Richiamo Coffee, Mr. Fish Fishhead Noodles, WTF Group and Hailam Toast. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Easy Eat AI helped restaurants meet deliveries, and its other features, such as targeted marketing campaigns and loyalty rewards programs, are also relevant to in-person dining.
A menu created with Easy Eat AI
Easy Eat AI’s consumer interface is based on QR code ordering – customers scan the code with their smartphone and go directly to the restaurant’s menu online. They choose what they want and then create an account or log in by entering their cell phone number. Payments and bonus programs can also be accessed via the platform.
The company says that after analyzing 100,000 orders in more than 50 restaurants over a six-month period, it found that people spend about 30% more on a digital order than through a waiter – similar to when people buy a specific item online buy and end up adding more items to your shopping cart while browsing.
After using Easy Eat AI for around 30 to 45 days, a restaurant will be able to build a customer database for targeted online marketing strategies and send offers to the people who are most likely to use them.
For example, a month after launch, the platform had collected data from more than 1,400 customers at its third Mr. Fish branch. The restaurant found that around 20% visited the restaurant more than once and the average length of time between visits was 12 days. Based on this information, marketing campaigns were created to withdraw people who had not returned for 20 days. During this time, Mr. Fish also began fulfilling delivery orders through Easy Eat AI and by the end of the month 13.4% of his orders were coming through the platform, reducing his reliance on third-party delivery apps.
In a statement on funding, Keshav Reddy, managing partner of the Reddy Futures Family Office said, “The team is customer obsessed and understands the pain issues in the industry. Your innovative software platform will disrupt the entire F&B ecosystem and customer interaction throughout the F&B lifecycle in the online-to-offline world. “