Nory raises $16m for AI-powered restaurant management tech

22 May 2024

CEO and founder Conor Sheridan. Image: Nory

CEO and founder Conor Sheridan said the funding comes at a time when the hospitality industry is facing ‘challenges and complexities like never before’.

Irish restaurant management software start-up Nory has raised $16m in a Series A funding round announced today (22 May).

The investment was led by Accel and backed by existing investors Cavalry, Playfair, Samaipata and Triplepoint. It brings total funding raised by Nory to $25m and will be used to accelerate product development and international expansion.

Founded by entrepreneur and Dublin-native Conor Sheridan (who previously founded restaurant group Mad Egg), Nory has developed an AI platform for hospitality businesses – which often face challenges relating to rising costs – to manage and scale their operations. The platform analyses data in real time and acts as a sort of AI-powered venue manager to help managers run restaurants and cafes efficiently.

Nory, which saw revenue grow by 400pc last year, said its technology can predict hourly venue demand for each day with 95pc accuracy based on historical data matched with its AI algorithms. These algorithms consider seasonal trends and hyperlocal live data on weather and events to help restaurants and cafes manage staffing. It also matches these predictions to other key workflows suck as stock management to help hospitality businesses reduce costs and waste.

Sheridan said that the latest funding comes at a time when the hospitality industry is facing “challenges and complexities like never before”.

“Operators don’t want more tools and apps that digitise every micro-workflow. They need technology that can give them real control over their business, their profitability and their destiny,” he said.

“Nory is on a mission to help systemise success for the restaurant industry and to stack the odds in their favour. Our Series A funding will help us on our path to building the world’s largest restaurant technology company.”

Luca Bocchio, partner at Accel, added that restaurants are under increasing pressure to improve operational efficiency and productivity.

“The industry is still under digitised, with fragmented point solutions that prevent businesses from gaining more granular data insights on their own operations,” Bocchio said. “Nory’s AI powered operating system provides restaurants with much needed access to a central, real-time source of truth, which is easy to use and delivers fast ROI [return on investment].”

Nory, previously known as Skueeze, raised €7m in a seed funding round co-led by Triple Point Ventures and Samaipata VC almost exactly a year ago. Before that, it raised $2m in an early 2021 round led by Berlin’s Cavalry Ventures and London’s Playfair Capital.

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Vish Gain was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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