News Briefs

Stayntouch, a provider of cloud hotel property management systems (PMS) and guest-centric technology, announced a new partnership with Woby, a self-order and pay web app that simultaneously connects with existing POS and PMS platforms. Stayntouch now integrates with Woby’s customizable web app, allowing for real-time POS and PMS synchronization.

With Stayntouch PMS, hotels can streamline operations, automate tasks, and provide a seamless digital guest welcome experience with mobile check-in. Woby complements this by offering a self-order and pay platform that seamlessly connects with both the hotel PMS and POS, streamlining the in-stay dining experience from ordering to payments to room service and delivery. By connecting Stayntouch PMS with Woby, hotels will benefit from: 

• A flexible and full-featured cloud PMS, that can deliver a frictionless mobile welcome and departure experience for guests, while integrating with best-of-breed mobile POS platforms.
• Real-time synchronization between the PMS, POS, and accounting software, allowing guests to connect to a single QR code to order what they want, pay how they want, and have room charges validated automatically.
• A fully customizable look and workflow to fit seamlessly with any hotel branding design or operational needs. 
• A dedicated integration connector that sets up integrations in minutes instead of months, and streamlines third-party connections. 

Ruud Hontelé, the managing partner of Woby, said: "Woby stands out as the pioneering self-order and pay app that seamlessly integrates Stayntouch with your POS system. Say goodbye to the hassles and pain points associated with digital menus, ordering, payments and logistics processes. Enhance the guest experience significantly while also reducing costs for your business."

Priya Rajamani, the vice president of implementation and support for Stayntouch, said: “We are excited to partner with Woby, a platform that empowers hotels to provide guests with a completely mobile-first dining experience. By seamlessly integrating our cloud PMS with Woby's self-ordering and payment platform, hotels can deliver a more personalized and fully mobile guest check-in and dining experience, enhancing the on-property experience. This collaboration ensures real-time synchronization, enhanced operational efficiency and elevated guest satisfaction.”

Restaurant365 announced a $175 million funding round led by long-term partner ICONIQ Growth with participation from current investors, including KKR and L Catterton. The funding comes on the heels of 12 consecutive quarters exceeding sales targets, which drives confidence in future growth potential. 

“Restaurant365’s growth is a testament to their ability to create powerful solutions that bolster operations, improve margins and empower the workforce at restaurant companies of all sizes,” said Will Griffith, Founding Partner of ICONIQ Growth. “We’re honored to participate in this incredible opportunity to help the restaurant industry succeed in a way that once seemed impossible.”

Proceeds from the round will be invested in expanding enterprise features and growing the workforce and payroll product suite to continue supporting the world’s largest, most notable hospitality brands. Funds will also strengthen the company’s balance sheet to facilitate future acquisitions and support continued organic growth.

“We’re grateful our investors continue to value the business and its upward trajectory as demonstrated by this most recent vote of confidence,” said Restaurant365 CEO and Co-founder Tony Smith. “We take that trust from them seriously as well as the trust placed in us by our customers and the industry at large. We will continue our relentless pursuit of developing products that add value in new ways to this great industry.”

This latest round follows Restaurant365’s acquisition of ExpandShare, an AI-powered learning management system built to deliver and track impactful restaurant training content.

In addition to adding employee training to its offerings, Restaurant365 expanded its all-in-one platform over the past year with tip automation, task management, restaurant intelligence dashboards, and Capture AI, which brings the power of machine learning to invoice management.

Cantaloupe Inc., a provider of end-to-end technology solutions for self-service commerce, is making its debut at the upcoming National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. Cantaloupe will be showcasing its self-service and mobile-first applications for stadiums, entertainment venues and hotels.

Cantaloupe is a global technology leader with more than 30 years of experience in powering self-service commerce. Cantaloupe’s mission is to revolutionize the way businesses engage with consumers by offering a comprehensive suite of solutions, including innovative kiosk and POS systems, as well as enterprise cloud software designed for a wide range of industries. With Cantaloupe’s end-to-end platform, businesses can drive engagement, increase sales revenue, and optimize operations, delivering exceptional experiences for both businesses and consumers.

“Cantaloupe’s solutions are specifically designed to cater to the growing demand for self-service and mobile-first experiences,” said Elyssa Steiner, chief marketing officer of Cantaloupe, Inc. “Our emphasis on convenience, efficiency and enhanced customer experiences really set Cantaloupe apart from traditional solutions and elevates guest and fan experiences into seamless journeys for shopping, ordering and paying.”

Attendees of the National Restaurant Association Show are invited to visit Cantaloupe's booth 6672 in the North Building of McCormick Place to experience Cantaloupe’s  technologies, including AI powered smart camera technology, which enables seamless and secure transactions. Cantaloupe's solutions eliminate the need for traditional checkout lines, providing customers with a hassle-free retail, food and beverage experience that includes convenience, speed, and flexibility in their transactions.

Some of the products Cantaloupe will be showcasing include its CHEQ point-of-sale (POS) platform, a mobile-first payment solution. CHEQ’s full end-to-end payment platform features mobile ordering (right from seats), mobile pick-up points (“CHEQ Points”) and innovative express kiosks (“CHEQ Zones”) to increase ordering efficiencies and decrease line wait times. CHEQ also offers its unique social gifting marketplace functionality, allowing guests, friends and family to send food and beverages to those attending a game or concert in real time, from anywhere in the world.

Cantaloupe’s booth at the National Restaurant Association Show will be highlighting:

• CHEQ POS Kiosks: available in attended or self-checkout mode, making ordering seamless across multiple revenue centers and empowering fans to self-service for reduced wait times.
• CHEQ Handheld: providing in-stadium vendors or those with on-the-go payment needs at festivals and events, the ability to accept payments anywhere, perfect for selling merchandise, food and beverages.
• CHEQ Mobile App: enables fans or event-goers the ability to order food and beverages from anywhere in the venue, with flexible pick-up or in-seat delivery options.
• Cantaloupe Smart Café: (Pictured) a fully locked cooler that enables true grab and go self-service with AI powered smart camera technology to charge the consumers card for the exact items they take out of the smart fridge.
• Cantaloupe Micro Markets for Hotel Pantries: a one-stop shop for cabinetry, coolers and self-checkout kiosks with the Cantaloupe Go MiniX cashless acceptance kiosk, that simply leverages existing pantry space and converts it into a self-service mini-market in hotel lobbies, creating less burden on employees to manage checking in guests and ringing up pantry products and instead, creates a fully grab-and-go experience.

To learn more about Cantaloupe, visit cantaloupe.com. 

Pudu Robotics, a global leader in service robotics, today announced the official debut of the upgraded PUDU SH1 Smart Upright Scrubber Dryer at Interclean 2024. The latest version of PUDU SH1 features extensive enhancements to deliver an altogether new product, boasting substantial design and cleaning capabilities improvements.

The PUDU SH1 is a testament to innovation, capable of multidimensional cleaning that extends beyond floors to tabletops, vertical glass surfaces, and challenging areas like corners and spaces beneath low furniture. Innovative design features of the PUDU SH1 allow for easy and efficient separation of air, liquid and debris waste, ensuring a convenient disposal process that prevents drain blockages and damage to the vacuum motor. With a 27kg down pressure, a 350rpm brush and 20KPa suction power, the SH1 excels at removing stubborn stains such as oil spills, dust deposits, and air-dried dirt, ensuring pristine conditions in diverse environments.

In response to the urgent need for sustainable and efficient cleaning solutions, PUDU SH1 sets a new standard for environmental responsibility. The SH1's advanced lithium battery technology and energy-efficient brushless motors significantly reduce the machine's ecological footprint, adhering to strict ROHS standards. By optimizing resource utilization, the SH1 saves up to 80% on water and cleaning agents compared to traditional mopping methods, and cuts cleaning time by a remarkable 70%. These features not only support eco-friendly practices but also translate into operational savings for businesses.

"Pudu Robotics is dedicated to empowering businesses to refine their services and heighten operational efficiency with our products designed to collaborate with human teams," said Felix Zhang, founder and CEO of Pudu Robotics. "This innovative product not only enhances cleaning performance but also embodies our commitment to sustainable product design and smart technology integration in cleaning workflows."

The SH1 boasts removable parts, which can be easily replaced and repaired to extend the use of the machine. Further product features include:

• Multidimensional Cleaning Capabilities: PUDU SH1 is equipped with a suite of accessories for cleaning floors, tabletops, vertical glass, corners, and under low furniture.
• Enhanced Cleaning Performance: The machine has high-efficiency cleaning with high pressure, rotational speed and suction power, as well as an innovative wastewater tank designed for effective air-liquid-debris waste separation.
• Touch Screen Interface: A user-friendly touch screen allows for easy management, including the selection of cleaning modes, displays of battery and water levels, and the generation of intelligent reports.
• Exceptional Stubborn Stain Removal: The machine is able to clean varied stains, including oil spills, dust deposits, and air-dried dirt, ensuring pristine conditions in various environments.
• Intelligent Detection for Safety: With intelligent diagnostics of core components, the PUDU SH1 ensures safe operation and simplifies maintenance.
• Air-Liquid-Debris Separation: PUDU SH1's wastewater tank features a layered design that facilitates the efficient separation of air, liquid and debris for easy disposal.

Hi Auto, a provider of drive-thru voice AI technology, released the Voice AI Marketer Toolkit, a comprehensive set of tools for quick service restaurants (QSRs) looking to capitalize on customer conversations to increase engagement and loyalty. These marketing tools include menu optimization, A/B or multivariate testing, and customized natural voices to help brands unlock the superpower of direct conversation with their customers.

Traditional marketing campaigns are limited to one-way communications across multiple platforms, such as digital advertising, social media, events, and visual promotions at brick-and-mortar locations. Due to the high staff turnover rate at QSRs, employees often work under intense pressure, making it difficult to promote the brand's values consistently. As a result, millions of drive-thru customers interact with random employees and experience inconsistent levels of service. This can be true for both regular and first-time customers.

Recognizing that voice AI automation can shift the current paradigm; Hi Auto developed a new marketing channel that allows restaurants to design and optimize customer conversations while highlighting brand value, promotions, events, special menu offerings, and more. The toolkit drives marketing and sales goals while building brand affinity and creating an elevated, consistent customer experience.

Key features of Hi Auto's “Voice AI Marketer Toolkit” include:

Dynamic Upsell Customization: Hi Auto's platform customizes product suggestions considering multiple factors influencing customer experiences, such as time, location, weather, script, language, and voice.

Multivariate Experimentation: The toolkit allows marketers to test a small control group of stores with similar performance by changing the conversation parameters, such as the number of upsells during a specific daypart. Based on the results, marketing teams can adjust the script to be deployed across all chains.

Natural and Cloned Voices: Hi Auto's voice AI enables QSRs to incorporate natural and even customized voice options into their drive-thru experience, providing customers with a more personalized and differentiated ordering experience. This ultimately enhances customer engagement and helps build brand affinity.

"Hi Auto's voice AI allows us to humanize the customer experience by customizing the drive-thru voice with our dialect and incorporating common phrases and slang that our customers can appreciate," said Leann Smith, Head of Marketing at Burger King New Zealand. "This collaboration enhanced labor efficiency and significantly improved order consistency and upselling conversions."

"While the operational benefits of voice AI justify the system's adoption, there is so much more value to unlock for sales and marketing teams," said Roy Baharav, CEO of Hi Auto. "That's why we are investing in the “Voice AI Marketer Toolkit” to provide organizations with the tools they need to realize the full potential of their drive-thru sales channel. Being the only company to date deploying drive-thru voice AI at scale allows us to identify the opportunities and develop the right capabilities for our customers to maximize their ROI.”

These capabilities are currently deployed in hundreds of drive-thru locations globally. For more information about Hi Auto and its drive-thru tailored voice AI platform, please visit Hi Auto.

Square announced several new platform integrations for food and beverage (F&B) businesses that include SevenRooms, Restaurant365, and Popmenu, among others, and revealed new partnerships with Performance Foodservice and a number of state restaurant associations. The company also launched new machine learning-powered app recommendations to improve how sellers discover connected products, and revealed new growth metrics around Square’s extensive ecosystem of third-party tools.

Square launched its App Marketplace a decade ago so sellers could easily find and use integrated solutions, enabling them to build a customized technology stack with the tools they prefer. Today, Square offers sellers more than 1,300 integrated and complementary partner solutions, with more than 100 introduced over the last 12 months. 

• 85% say integrations with other systems is driving POS purchasing decisions, according to HT's 2024 POS Software Trends Survey

Food and beverage businesses in particular have found immense value in the variety of integrations that Square offers in collaboration with its partners:

• 47% of Square’s F&B gross payment volume (GPV) in 2023 came from sellers using at least one integration.
• Last year, the typical F&B seller using at least one integration grew their year-over-year GPV at more than 2x the rate when compared to similar sellers using no integrations.
• F&B sellers are also quicker to turn to one of Square’s integrations than non-food and beverage sellers, with 45% adopting a third-party solution within their first year of using Square to help them grow their sales, manage online orders and deliveries, and much more.

Square’s latest slate of partner integrations provide restaurants of all sizes with a wider selection of tools to help them succeed.

• SevenRooms’ integration with Square allows restaurants to see reservations and additional customer insights on their POS, streamlining dining room management for front-of-house staff and providing diners with an elevated experience through increased personalization. By bringing key historical data from both Square and SevenRooms to the fingertips of operators and their teams, restaurants gain an unparalleled ability to tailor their service to individual guests.
• Restaurant365, an industry leading, all-in-one cloud-based solution that helps restaurants manage their accounting, workforce, and store operations, is now available in Square’s App Marketplace. This integration provides restaurants with a comprehensive understanding of their entire business and empowers operators to make more informed business decisions, increase profitability, and enrich diners’ experiences.
• When 7shifts is used with Square, operators can access restaurant performance data in real time. This gives them better visibility into sales projections and labor costs, so they can make smarter, more profitable business decisions on the fly.
• Popmenu’s integration provides restaurants with a powerful solution to grow their digital presence, automate and personalize their marketing, and manage online orders within Square.
• Olo, a leading restaurant technology provider, enables restaurants to increase orders, streamline operations, and improve the guest experience. Through its integration with Square, which is currently in beta, operators will be able to view orders from all their digital channels all in one place on their POS and KDS (kitchen display system).

“We operate 19 restaurants across four concepts, and to do so successfully, we use a number of tools to provide us with the key insights we need to make informed decisions around labor costs, vendor expenses, and store performance,” said Edgar Hernandez, CFO of Raydal Hospitality Group, the team behind Sabor Latin Street Grill and Three Amigos. “The importance of having a commerce platform that easily works with the operational software we rely on cannot be understated. Instead of having to reconcile data from different systems, Square's work to build and maintain a wide variety of important solution integrations helps us remain focused on optimizing our operations and growing our business.”

“As competitive pressures mount across the hospitality industry, it has become even more important for operators to have a 360-degree view of their customers so they can provide truly differentiated experiences,” said Allison Page, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of SevenRooms. “Our comprehensive integration with Square equips restaurants with the rich data they need to better understand their diners, helping them make every guest interaction more personalized while driving higher customer loyalty and retention.”

Alongside these new integrations, Square is also rolling out a new recommendation engine for partner integrations, powered by machine learning. The new recommendation model is designed to elevate the visibility of partner solutions and make more personalized, timely recommendations within a seller’s Dashboard, tailored to their needs. While piloting the new model, Square observed a 26% increase in partner app conversion.

“Square has made huge investments in its developer platform and ecosystem of integrations over the last few years to deliver more value to sellers and partners alike,” said Ming-Tai Huh, Square’s Head of Food and Beverage. “Restaurants today rely on a variety of tools and services to drive operational efficiency, manage labor costs, and find new avenues for growth in an increasingly competitive and challenging landscape. The value of ensuring food and beverage businesses can seamlessly build the technology stacks that best fit their operations is evident in the engagement and growth we’re seeing, and Square is committed to providing sellers with best-in-class integrations that help them more easily navigate the complexities of running and growing their business.”

Square today is also unveiling a number of new industry partnerships. The company is now working with Performance Foodservice, a leading foodservice distributor, as a One Source Solution Partner.  Additionally, Square has partnered with a variety of restaurant associations throughout the country, including the Illinois Restaurant Association, the California Restaurant Association, and the New York State Restaurant Association. 

To learn more about Square’s new integrations and latest offerings for F&B businesses, visit Square’s booth 5821 at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago from May 18 to May 21.