SAN FRANCISCO — Owner — an AI platform for small businesses – has raised $240 million and reached a $2.3 billion valuation. Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives led the financing. Existing investors Meritech, Redpoint, Headline, and Jack Altman also participated.
Owner is the AI CMO and CTO for local businesses. It builds and runs their technology and marketing. That includes their websites, online ordering, mobile apps, CRM, customer support, POS, and AI phone ordering. Its AI agents manage and improve each part automatically. Big corporations spend billions on tech and marketing. Small businesses can’t afford that, so Owner is building AI to do that work for them.
Owner launched in 2020 and has surpassed $100 million in ARR. This year alone, independent restaurant owners will drive more than $1 billion in sales through Owner. Thousands of local businesses use the platform, more than 100 million American consumers have used it, and it now powers more U.S. locations than Domino’s or Taco Bell. Owner is the #1 rated restaurant technology on Capterra and G2.
A local business owner can talk to Owner like a member of the team. Owner’s agents build and run the business’s digital presence 24/7. They learn what works across thousands of restaurants and improve performance automatically. A business can ask Owner to promote a menu item, and its agents can create the promotion, update the website, build the campaign, generate the creative, and publish it. Owner can also answer the phone, take orders, reply to reviews and emails, and support customers.
The results according to the company:
- Restaurants grow online traffic by 40% on average within 30 days of launching.
- The average restaurant grows direct online revenue by more than 40% in its first year.
- Customers using a restaurant’s branded app reorder at 2x the rate of non-app users.
“The world is racing to build AI to replace people’s jobs. Owner is building AI to do the opposite: to do the jobs many small business owners have never been able to afford,” said Adam Guild, co-founder and CEO of Owner. “Now, for the first time, local restaurants have the same tech advantages as the huge chains they compete with. And soon every small local business, including grocers and salons, will have those advantages too.”
Owner’s team includes alumni from Shopify, DoorDash, Compass, Salesforce, and HubSpot. More than 35 team members are former founders. The company also uses AI throughout development. It builds in weeks or months what once took years.
Next, Owner plans to serve every U.S. independent restaurant, expand internationally, and bring its AI system to more local businesses: salons, spas, independent grocers, and more.
