Restaurant intelligence platform Yumpingo has raised a $10 million Series A round, according to a company press release. The round was led by Smedvig Capital with participation from Equinix CEO Keith Taylor, Bullet Point Network CEO Mike Ryan, and David Cantu, cofounder of HotSchedules.
Yumpingo’s software is primarily built around the after-meal surveys restaurant guests are given that let them rate their experience at the restaurant and their food, with questions specific down to the the individual dish. Restaurants can offer the surveys via the Yumpingo Now package, for which they are given a Yumpingo tablet to hand to guests dining in. They can also choose Yumpingo Everywhere, which lets businesses use the software on their own devices and in a range of different restaurant settings, full-service, quick-service, stadiums, bars, and delivery among them.
Digital surveys are nothing new in the restaurant biz, but Yumpingo somewhat differentiates itself by adding a data analytics element to its products. The Insights Platform, which is also part of the cloud-based offering, looks at live restaurant data over time to identify things like popular dishes and server performance in any given day, week, or month. There is also a communication tool that lets restaurants track reviews on the major sites (e.g., Opentable) and communicate with customers. The entire product can integrate with a restaurant’s existing POS system.
And from the looks of it Yumpingo seems to be inching towards becoming a full tech stack for restaurants rather than just a restaurant feedback platform. The company says that part of the new funding will be used to launch a new pay-at-the-table platform in addition to scaling its existing offerings.
The move to branch into other areas of the tech stack is wise on Yumpingo’s part, given the consolidation that’s already happening in areas of the restaurant industry and fast headed for others. Other companies, notably reservations platforms like Yelp and Resy, have also built out their software packages to include menu management, loyalty programs, and, even some back-of-house tools.
For Yumpingo, becoming more than just a survey tool means hopefully staying competitive and staying relevant in a restaurant industry based less and less on what’s happening in the dining room and more on off-premises orders. Continuing to develop the Everywhere offering as well as adding a pay feature could help the company potentially reach a wider base of restaurant clients, whether they’re catering to guests in the dining room or those on the couch.
