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    • RestTech Investments

      Bailiwick Ventures, Inc.

    • The Restaurant Industry

      The Third Wave of Innovation

      The Restaurant Industry

      Over the last 100 years, the restaurant industry has grown to become the nation’s second-largest private-sector employer with more than 15 million workers serving more than 170 million customers every day. Early projections indicate that restaurant and foodservice sales in 2019 will exceed $863 billion generated by one million restaurants, of which, 70% which are independent operators.

       

      The $3 trillion global restaurant industry is massively relevant and vital to all economies. In the U.S. alone, over 1 million restaurants will generate more than $863 billion in sales and employ 14+ million employees in 2019. Restaurants are on the hunt for fresh ideas and new channels to improve sales and maintain margins. They must discover new sales channels and leverage new technologies.

       

      Restaurant operators suffer from a wide array of business challenges today. They now seek technical solutions that address these challenges and legacy business practices. Operators know that technology is transforming the global restaurant industry and many operators have increased the average annual investment from 2% historically, to nearly 5% of sales today. Because of this, they and we, seek solutions that address (a) demand generation (b) labor cost reduction (c) CRM and transaction data and insights; and (d) automation/AI for value creation and efficiency.

       

      Even more impressive is the transformative effects restaurant tech is having on the industry globally, both B2C and B2B. Investors have sunk over $20 billion in restaurant technology startups in the last 10 years and ecosystem of cloud solutions can be confusing.

       

    • Food Tech

      Investment Focus | Forces of Change

      2019

      Technologies unification

      As more operators turn to tech to improve their performance, it’s easy to get carried away with the many applications and softwares that will end up complicating the process. Technologies unification involves integrating cloud APIs to deliver simplified functionalities that allow operators to track their restaurant’s progress in real-time. Real-time tracking enables operators to constantly identify where and why sales are behaving the way they are, and to act on it accordingly. Visual tools such as dashboards allows this collected data to be readily accessible to operators, key stakeholders and even staff. This democratization of information leads to greater awareness and understanding of the business.

       

      Conversational interfaces

      We also set our sights on the human interface and conversational commerce. This means using voice and text chatbots to enable consumers to order food, manage guest services, make reservations, manage guest satisfaction and engage interactively where billions of people are online already. The use of chatbots can also extend to B2B applications where operators from different verticals are able to order from other vendors. This accelerated ease of using voice platforms like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, and chatbots platforms like Facebook and Slack are permeating the industry as operators seek more efficient ways to quell the growing demands of their guests.

       

      Improved communication and accessible education

      F&B operators are increasingly aware of the importance of bridging gaps in communication between staff and consumers, as well as widening access to information that will inform them of better decisions to improve their service and business. Access to education will allow companies to understand their consumer better and allow them to decide how best to engage them. This means businesses can stay ahead of their consumers and anticipate their needs and wants — and anticipation is crucial in creating memorable guest experiences.

       

      Automation - Food-maker robotics

      The labor pool remains competitive and continues to shrink, the restaurant industry is particularly challenged to hire, train and retain quality and affordable FOH and BOH staff. Operators are no longer in control of their labor costs with state mandates for minimum wages increases and healthcare benefits. With thin margins, naturally, restaurant concepts must evolve in these changing and challenging times. Enter the food-maker robots that make and serve hamburgers, yogurt, pizza another food categories, just to start. We see low cost, high potential ROI's for entrepreneurs and existing operators and landlords. Food-maker robots and robot vending will affect how we conveniently consume fast food and snacks with no human interaction.

    • Restaurant Technology Pledge Fund

      On-demand Investing

      The Restaurant Technology Pledge Fund


      We are creating a food and restaurant technology pledge fund, to invest in promising startups offering solutions to the global foodservice and hospitality industries. This is an invitation-only Restaurant Technology Investment Club sponsored and administrated by Bailiwick Ventures, Inc.

       

      RESTAURANT TECHNOLOGY FUND (RTF)
      A pledge fund, in finance, is a private equity investment platform where unlike a traditional committed private equity fund, investors provide capital on a deal-by-deal basis. RTF intends to secure a minimum of $10 million in total investor pledges from qualified investors and RTF Investment Club Members.

       

      INVESTMENT PARAMETERS
      The minimum investment commitment by each club member is $250,000 per investor over five years. Each investor will be offered the opportunity to invest in Bailiwick Ventures' sponsored investment opportunities on a first-come-first-served basis. Each investment will act as a special purpose investment limited liability company not to be integrated in a diversified portfolio of investments lime a typical venture fund. Each investment is intended to be stand-alone investment. An investor can diversify their risk by investing in multiple opportunities sponsored by Bailiwick Ventures.

       

      We envision making 5-7 investments per year. Each investment will include option for an additional investment in a future round. Therefore, we project about $2 million a year invested with future optional commitments.

       

      INVESTOR PROFILE
      The ideal investor (Pledgee) is a foodservice industry or technology professional. We believe it is important that investors have relevant domain expertise to fully appreciate the value and measure product and market risk. It is also important to mention that our value-add is to assist in product trials and feedback, giving the RTF an edge on competing for quality deals and to further mitigate investor risk by being a potential user of these technologies. All investors must be accredited under Rule 501 qualified investor.

       

      MANAGEMENT FEES
      The RTF will charge each Pledgee $5,000 per year administrative, deal sourcing and due diligence services fee. One quarter of this fee ($1,250) is paid by each Pledgee each quarter for the term of the Fund. In addition, Bailiwick Ventures will earn 20% of the profits of any consideration remaining after 100% of invested capital and management fees paid have been returned to each investor. We envision a maximum of 40 pledgees.

       

      BACKGROUND
      While the foodservice industry is indeed being transformed by technology, what does the restaurant operator have to say about all of this? There are hundreds and hundreds of tech innovators targeting restaurants with their apps and cloud-based solutions to solve problems that may or may not exist. The Fund combines over 30 years of restaurant and foodservice industry expertise with over a decade of social web and Internet technology expertise. Additionally, the Fund has access to a world class advisory board that includes tech entrepreneurs, investors, high profile restaurant operators, C-level executives, seasoned tech entrepreneurs, venture investors, celebrity restaurateurs and chefs. It’s the rare combination of food| restaurant + tech + start up investing and operators expertise that uniquely defines The Restaurant Technology Fund.

       

      INVESTMENT THESIS
      We intend to seek qualified seed stage and growth stage (Seed + Late Seed and Series A) investment opportunities that range between $100,000 and $500,000 as lead investor or as co-investor with individual investors and early stage venture funds.

       

      CONSULTING
      RTF, through its affiliate RestTech.co, may offer fee-based consulting services to portfolio investments.

       

    • Portfolio

      We invent, create, develop and invest

      FohBoh Media

      Restaurant Technology News

      FohBoh means Front of House, Back of House so we cover a lot of ground. But, we also know that technology is transforming the restaurant industry and this touches all FOH+BOH systems and persons and that's our bailiwick. So, our news and information agency inFOH, delivers a daily newsletter about restaurant technology to tens of thousands of industry professionals in 130 countries.

      Orderscape®

      Conversational Commerce

      Orderscape is determined to own the voice layer for the global foodservice industry.

      imhungry.ai

      Voice-enabled Restaurant Marketplace

      inhungry.ai is the premier and largest voice-enabled restaurant marketplace, with over 50,000 restaurants offering over 6.3 million menu items in all 50 states. I M Hungry is owned and powered by Orderscape and, is officially launching in Q4 2019.

      StarBar.ai

      Voice-enabled Restaurant Management Software

      StarBar.ai voice-enables legacy restaurant management processes to save time and money. Beginning with VoiceINV™, operators at every restaurants, hotel, casino, bar and pub worldwide will be able to use the patent pending StarBar voice inventory and order automation software. This reduces the time it takes to complete a bar inventory by 80%. Future voice-inventory modules will include food and products.

    • About Us

      Experience and Perspective

      Experience

      Our leadership team has broad reach to industry affiliates, business colleagues, restaurant leadership, and influencers, affiliates, dealers and media relationships. We bring decades of relevant experience to our investing partners and portfolio companies. We bring operations, culinary, development and corporate finance expertise. We have held BOH and FOH unit-level and C-level positions at regional and national chains. We are food and restaurant tech entrepreneurs and social media pioneers.

       

      We are practitioners and thought-leaders and with an operators' perspective. We are passionate about the restaurant industry and excited about how enabling technologies are transforming our industry every day. Technology helps create operational efficiencies leading to profitability and that make operators more competitive and relevant.

      Perspective

      We have unique access to opportunities because we have been actively engaged as operators, digital media and Internet entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, financiers, food and restaurant technology sales and social media marketers for decades. We think automation is the new key to success in the broader foodservice industry. We have transaction experience as investment banker and entrepreneur. We live and work at the intersection of restaurant and technology working with clients and partners around the globe.

      Entrepreneurs

      We are experienced entrepreneurs in food and beverage, restaurants, retail and Internet technology. We have an operator's perspective with vision and access to key resources required to execute on our plans. We invest, create and operate.

      Investors

      We invest in our own portfolio but can assist others in reaching their funding goals.

      Influencers and Though-Leaders

      We created the first restaurant social media community and network in 2007. The purpose was to connect and engage operators and no-operators and inform the industry about new emerging technologies that are transforming the industry. FohBoh.com, and ity's RestTech Newsletter deliver news and information to over 80,000 industry professionals multiple times each week.

    • Founder | CEO

      Investor and Entrepreneur

      MICHAEL L. ATKINSON - Founder

      Investor, Restaurateur and Technology Entrepreneur

      Serial Investor, entrepreneur, speaker and restaurant technology multi-hyphenate living in San Jose, California. LinkedIn | Biography | Speaking | @michaelatkinson | RestTech

      Company

      Restaurant and technology industry executives & investors

      Many of our partners sit on boards as advisors or directors. These accomplished restaurant and technology industry veterans are executives, investors, advisors, developers, entrepreneurs and key influencers help us evaluate investments and provide insight and wisdom, connections and help us accelerate our success.

    • Contact Us

      For more information, please contact us.

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    Copyright 2019 Bailiwick Ventures, Inc.