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Bite Ninja Raises $675,000 in Pre-Seed Funding to Virtually Staff Restaurants

Bite Ninja, which allows restaurants to virtually staff drive-thrus and counters, has raised $675,000 in Pre-Seed funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news, writing that the round was led by Y Combinator, AgFunder and Manta Ray.

The basic gist of Bite Ninja is that it allows restaurant workers to take drive-thru and counter orders remotely. Instead of managing staffers, restaurants get access to a pool of gig workers (called “ninjas”) managed and scheduled by Bite Ninja. Since these workers take orders remotely (from their own homes, for example), these workers don’t actually show up to the restaurant for their shift.

From the customer’s perspective, little changes about the order-pay-collect process. Someone placing a drive-thru order interacts with a remote worker whose face appears on a screen in the drive-thru lane. The customer may not even know the worker is offsite. Bite Ninja says this method can actually increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants.

Bite Ninja is coming along at a time when the restaurant industry is in the midst of a labor crunch and struggling to find workers. Bite Ninja’s platform can help alleviate this issue by allowing QSRs to staff up on demand without going through the process of hiring and training a worker. Another benefit in these pandemic times is that by shifting some of the order taking to a virtual staffer, more social distance can be created in the back of house because there is one less person on-site. For workers, Bite Ninja opens up new work opportunities because they can pull shifts in different restaurants and time zones from the comfort of their home.

As the pandemic pushed people out of dining rooms and into off-premises meal formats, restaurants have needed to modernize their drive-thru operations. Bite Ninja is among a number of companies that are looking to make drive-thrus both faster and more accurate. Other startups, such as ConverseNow and Valyant AI are building artificial intelligence agents that can take orders from people using natural language.

Bite Ninja Co-Founder Will Clem will actually be speaking about his business and the future of QSRs at our Restaurant Tech Summit next week. And just like one of his company’s ninjas, you can attend virtually from your couch, so grab your ticket today!

Virtually Staffing the Physical Drive-Thru

Generally speaking, restaurants with drive-thrus have often fared better than most over the last year and a half of shutdowns, dining room restrictions, and overall uncertainty. But even as demand for this format rises and major QSRs say they’ll focus more on it in future store designs, wait times at the drive-thru have gotten longer, the accuracy of orders more dubious.

Lots of companies are throwing tech at the problem to try and solve it. One of the more interesting we’ve come across recently is from Bite Ninja, which supplies restaurants with “virtual” cashiers and drive-thru operators that can take orders remotely. This has the potential to speed up the order-taking process and simultaneously addresses the labor issues currently impacting the restaurant industry.

Bite Ninja essentially lets restaurants outsource their staffing needs for the drive-thru lane to gig workers that take orders from their own homes, or wherever they happen to be. Workers — also known as “ninjas” — sign up for a shift via the Bite Ninja platform, which manages the scheduling and logistics of getting the worker set up with their shift at the restaurant. It also trains workers on both the technology (it’s Bite Ninja’s own proprietary system) and how to take a restaurant order, both generally and for specific brands. 

Customers pulling into the drive-thru lane will see the cashier’s face appear on the ordering screen. The cashier will then walk the customer through the ordering process. From a customer experience perspective, the drive-thru process isn’t significantly altered. You just happen to be talking to a person that’s not actually at the restaurant (and through a system with reportedly better audio quality).

Bite Ninja’s cofounders are no strangers to the QSR world. The idea for the platform started at one of cofounder Will Clem’s own restaurants, Baby Jack’s in Tennessee. Clem, who is also one of the original cofounders of cultivated meat company Memphis Meats (which as since rebranded as Upside), decided to use his laptop and a videoconferencing tool one evening to take orders at his drive-thru remotely. After realizing how well the concept worked, he and cofounder Orin Wilson decided to try offering the Bite Ninja platform to the wider industry. 

Clem and Wilson say their platform can increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants. For workers, it’s a way of making extra money without having to clock in at the actual restaurant. And it goes without saying that having your drive-thru cashiers work remotely is more social-distancing-friendly than on-premises work.

While the technology is currently only up and running at Baby Jack’s, Clem and Wilson told The Spoon they have been contacted by “most of the major fast food restaurants in America” and are currently onboarding a few of them. (Actual names of brands will be disclosed once a trial period is completed.) And drive-thru isn’t the only place we may soon be able to find Bite Ninja. The company says its platform is also currently available as a front-of-house kiosk, and that curbside, phone, and online ordering capabilities are in the works.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about Bite Ninja’s place in the restaurant industry, join The Spoon and guests on August 17 for a virtual Restaurant Tech Summit. Bite Ninja will join the likes of Wow Bao, Fat Brands. Sevenrooms, Kitchen United, and many more companies and individuals from the restaurant industry. Grab a ticket here, and come ready to ask some questions. 

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