Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP®), producers of Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC®), has announced the seven exceptional startups participating in Entrepreneur 20X (E20X) Toronto held on June 28, 2023 at HITEC Toronto.

As the premier hospitality technology pitch competition for nearly a decade, Entrepreneur 20X is a unique opportunity for startups to gain visibility and credibility in the industry and network with fellow solution providers and influential industry professionals. Participants will have four minutes each to present their innovative products or services to a panel of judges with backgrounds in entrepreneurship and a live audience of HITEC attendees. Each pitch will be followed by another four minutes for Q&A between the judges and presenters.

The winning startup will receive a grand prize of $5,000 as the Judges’ Choice Award selection while the People’s Choice Award winner will also be recognized as voted on by their peers in real time during the presentation and deliberation periods. All startups will receive exposure to potential investors, customers, and partners in the hospitality technology industry through their participation in the competition.

Beyond the stage, E20X participants receive a complimentary space to exhibit alongside over 300 of their peers in the HITEC Toronto exhibit hall at the E20X Pavilion. Pitchers will also have access to a team of industry mentors before the competition to inspire and educate the startups by lending them the insights, expertise and guidance they need to succeed for both the competition and their fledgling companies.

“E20X is yet another way that HFTP delivers on our goal of supporting the next generation of hospitality technology professionals,” said Frank Wolfe, CAE, CEO of HFTP. “I am excited to see the latest group of startups to take the HITEC stage by storm.”

The participating 2023 E20X Toronto startups are:

1. Aphy
2. Buk Technology
3. eTip
4. Laasie
5. PassiveBolt
6. PricingService.ai
7. WrkSpot

HFTP is also set to hold an E20X competition at HITEC Dubai 2023 on May 23 at the Dubai World Trade Center, co-located with The Hotel Show Dubai. Applications to participate in E20X Dubai 2023 close May 12.

HITEC is the world’s largest and longest-running hospitality technology conference. It attracts thousands of attendees and hundreds of industry solution providers and brings together the brightest minds and hottest technologies from across the globe to one place. Attendees gain access to essential education, top hospitality industry experts and the resources to find cost-effective ways to improve company bottom lines. HITEC Toronto will be held June 26-29, 2023 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario CAN. Learn more at www.hitec.org.

Knowland, a provider of data-as-a-service insights on meetings and events for hospitality, announced that Remington Hotels, a dynamic and growing hotel management company, selected Knowland to execute its sales strategy and increase profitability more precisely.

Founded in 1968, Remington Hotels has grown into a strong, industry-leading hospitality service provider. Today it manages 121 hotels in 30 states across 26 brands, including 18 independent and boutique properties. Because of the scale of its portfolio, the management company turned to Knowland to ensure its properties are meeting their goals using actionable data.

• Helps teams identify multi-day event bookings – Knowland is the only source that enables hotel sales teams to understand better what multi-day events are booking in their local market. This is an advantage over competitors and provides details about events to ensure sales teams are focusing on the leads that will deliver higher win rates and grow revenue faster.
• The recovery of group business is strong but different – Knowing which group business to focus on and driving results are crucial elements of a successful salesperson. Data intelligence that helps Remington properties focus on the right group, regardless of size, is essential to success. Smaller groups are taking the lead as group business grows, so having the data to understand these new meeting trends is critical to a hotel’s bottom line.
• Gaining a market-specific focus – Some Remington Hotels properties are in markets that are not yet fully recovered, such as Chicago and New Orleans in convention-dependent or urban markets. Knowland provides the insight to help hotels in these affected markets identify smaller meetings to build their bookings base.

Loretta Macke, senior vice president of sales, Remington Hotels, said: “Having access to Knowland’s meetings and events data gives our sales teams an advantage and has streamlined their workflow by ensuring they focus on accounts that deliver multi-day events with guest room and catering revenue. With the return of group business, regardless of event size, our focus is clear—increase sales using the latest technological advances available to us and do so efficiently.”

Patricia Shea, vice president sales and customer success, Knowland, said: “Knowland helps Remington Hotel teams increase sales, but also do so by identifying the right business for each property. We look forward to helping its property-level teams leverage our data insights to enhance sales operations and drive efficiency and growth across all its markets.”

CardFree is launching CardFree Checkout – an end-to-end payment interface that allows for a platform-agnostic, frictionless checkout. CardFree Checkout can also leverage CardFree’s Universal Payment Layer, providing a single API to streamline Delivery, Order Ahead, In-Store Ordering, Text-to-Pay and [email protected] while giving restaurants holistic analytics of individual customer behavior across channels.

Checkout is decoupled from CardFree’s core solutions and can be embedded in any third party’s native app or web solution with the ability to accept a variety of digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and more. That means that restaurants can use Checkout as a standalone product for streamlined payments, regardless of their digital ordering provider, POS, or payment processor. CardFree Checkout offers built-in protection to identify fraudulent activity pre-transaction as well as 3D-Secure authentication to shift chargeback liability to the issuing bank.

With the rise of digital solutions in hospitality, there has been an increase in both vendor and payment fatigue – driving most brands to multiple reporting venues, and worse, the consumer to muddle through 3-5 different checkout experiences. CardFree Checkout creates a unified payment experience regardless of the medium, meaning customers will engage with the same exact payment process on any ordering platform a restaurant offers – web app, native app, Text-To-Pay for phone orders, in-store kiosk, [email protected], etc. That ease of use and familiarity from guests effectively reduces cart abandonment while a unified source of analytics simplifies data-driven marketing.

CardFree Checkout is a comprehensive suite of payment options that cut across credit, debit, digital wallets, and gift cards, all wrapped with industry-leading fraud tools to minimize the touch points for merchants to go live. Checkout can be paired with any on-premise ([email protected], [email protected], Drive-Thru, Loyalty) and off-premise (Order Ahead, Text-to-Pay) tools to further ease deployment and vendor management.

sweetgreen is opening first restaurant powered by automation. The pilot store, located in Naperville, Ill., debuts  technology called the sweetgreen Infinite Kitchen, designed to enhance the customer experience and food quality, with a focus on fresh ingredients, fast service, and friendly hospitality.

This is the brand's first automated kitchen since sweetgreen acquired the  robotic kitchen concept  Spyce back in 2021. Four MIT grads, who were seeking healthy and affordable fast-casual food, introduced Spyce’s original automated concept in May 2018 in Boston.

sweetgreen has spent the last year and a half fine tuning and adapting its technology to test alongside customers and team members, with the goal of designing a frictionless experience that connects more people to real food.

The new format allows for quicker pace, precise portioning and increased accuracy—while creating efficiencies that allow the team to focus on fresh prep and intimate hospitality. Guests can watch the technology at work, from dispensing greens and dressing bowls and plates, to evenly dispersing ingredients and mixing salads. Team members add the final touches at the finishing station, with a sprinkle of herbs or a scoop of avocado.

"We believe that automation will enable us to elevate the quality and integrity of our food while also providing a faster and more convenient experience for our customers and a better, more dynamic job for our team members," said Jonathan Neman, CEO and Co-Founder of sweetgreen. “With the integration of the sweetgreen Infinite Kitchen in our restaurants, we can unlock efficiencies that will enable us to grow more quickly as we scale.”

During a May 4 earnings call with analysts, Neman said a second Infinite Kitchen is expected to open later this year. It will be a retrofitting at an existing restaurant, "so that we can learn how best to integrate the Infinite Kitchen in an existing site,” he said.

When visiting the Naperville sweetgreen restaurant, customers are greeted by the new “host” position which provides a more personalized connection between team members and guests. To order, customers can utilize self-service kiosks, place an order through the mobile app, or order directly from the restaurant’s host. The new restaurant format also brings in a new Tasting Counter, brand-storytelling digital screens and a revamped merchandising strategy for an authentic sweetgreen experience at every touchpoint. Customers visiting the store will be able to shop exclusive merch with designs inspired by the new store joining the Naperville community.

Artificial intelligence tools are spreading to every industry, including the hospitality industry, and Tripleseat is putting this technology into the hands of restaurants and hotels that provide catering and events.

Tripleseat, a web-based sales and event management platform for restaurants, hotels, and unique venues, announced the launch of ChatGPT artificial intelligence to enable venues to enhance their online presence with EventUp and food and beverage sales with Tripleseat’s direct event booking and reservation platform TripleseatDirect.

Integrated into the text editor in Tripleseat’s EventUp and enabled on TripleseatDirect forms, venues can receive AI powered by ChatGPT recommendations for updating their venue and room descriptions to better appeal to guests, boosting Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and adding creative event details to attract more planners on EventUp and TripleseatDirect. This not only improves the overall guest experience but also helps venues attract more business.

“At Tripleseat, we believe that incorporating cutting-edge technology into our platform is key to driving success for our customers in the ever-evolving hospitality industry,” said Jonathan Morse, CEO of Tripleseat. “With the launch of ChatGPT features, we're excited to offer our customers access to the latest in artificial intelligence, providing them with personalized recommendations to enhance their venue listings and ultimately attract more business. We're proud to be at the forefront of this technology and look forward to continuing to innovate and provide top-notch solutions for our customers.” 

SageNet, a Tulsa-based managed network, digital experience and security services provider, has appointed industry veteran IV Dickson as its new Chief Innovation Officer (CIVO). Dickson previously served as SageNet’s VP of Digital Experience.

In the newly created CIVO position, Dickson will be responsible for driving innovation and fostering a culture of forward thinking and creativity that anticipates and solves customer challenges. As CIVO, he will be focused on helping both SageNet and its customers recognize emerging trends and identify opportunities for improved productivity and growth.

“SageNet enjoys a 25-year track record of innovation. The CIVO position recognizes the growing importance of innovation in this hyper-accelerated environment of technological and cultural change,” said Brad Wise, SageNet’s CEO. “IV truly understands the customer is the heart of our business, and the key to success goes beyond providing outstanding support today. It anticipates the needs and opportunities of tomorrow and provides the leadership to help the customer arrive and thrive.”

As CIVO, Dickson will also collaborate with the broader SageNet organization – including R&D, engineering, operations, product, sales and marketing – to ensure SageNet’s innovation initiatives are aligned with the company’s overarching business strategies. This includes investigating new product and service offerings, evaluating new business methodologies, and exploring ways to improve existing processes.

“This role is really all about listening, outside-the-box thinking, and teamwork with partners, customers and colleagues,” said Dickson. “During the pandemic, we witnessed an acceleration in the confluence of digital and physical experience never witnessed before. “My entire career is built on the confluence of the digital and physical world. I’ve always been fascinated with finding new ways to use connectivity, creativity and technology to help customers build innovative and highly sustainable brand experiences, whether that’s AI, IoT or something else entirely.

“This is not about invention. It’s about collaboration and implementation. It’s about taking great ideas and turning them into something better, whether that’s an improved customer experience, service or physical product. That’s what drives me, and all of us at SageNet,” concluded Dickson.

Dickson enters this position with more than 20 years of experience in digital engagement hardware, software, integration and solutions, to bring with him a deep understanding of how to harness physical-digital convergence to create business objective-driven customer engagement platforms.