F1 boss among business leaders to invest in ‘game changer’ food intelligence startup

Yumpingo, the food intelligence platform, has announced a new wave of investment from an array of business leaders.

Among them include Ross Brawn, Formula One managing director of Motorsports, Steve Parish, chairman of Crystal Palace FC, Keith Taylor, CFO of Equinix and Tara Donavon, former CEO of Jamie Oliver Media Group.

This takes total investment in Yumpingo to £1.3m.

The London-based company, which offers real-time customer feedback and data analytics for the restaurant industry, was founded by Gary Goodman in 2016. It has recently won contracts with high-street restaurant chains and independents including Bill’s, ASK Italian, Rosa’s Thai Cafe, BIRD and Mac & Wild.

Yumpingo is also rolling out to more sites at Wagamama, Wahaca and Jamie’s Italian.

Users complete a one-minute review at the end of their meal, either on Yumpingo devices, which replace traditional bill presenters, or on their own device. Up to 66% of tables take part with no incentive and 20% of guests leave a GDPR compliant email.

This data allows restaurateurs to understand what their customers are thinking across multiple sites and, by adding machine learning to this feedback, Yumpingo produces insights that enable them to optimise guest experiences at site, service, server and dish level.

Gary Goodman, founder and CEO of Yumpingo, said: “At a time when the restaurant industry is under significant pressure, we see an opportunity for Yumpingo to help brands derisk decision making and deliver better food and service that will keep customers coming back for more.”

Ross Brawn, Formula One managing director of Motorsports, added: “Data has been an enabler in every part of my career.

“Winning in Formula 1 required us to understand and analyse data and information to optimise our performance in every aspect. Yumpingo is applying this understanding of data and insights to the restaurant industry and that’s why I see it as a game changer.”

Steve Parish, chairman of Crystal Palace FC, also commented: “Football and fitness are being transformed through the use of data and more specifically data driven insights. As both a proprietor of restaurants at the club and an investor in the casual dining sector it amazed me when I was presented with Yumpingo that something like it didn’t already exist.

“BIRD, the fried chicken chain in which I am invested has collated over 33k food and service reviews in the last 6 months. This enables the management to not only make big steps forward but also implement 100s of small incremental daily improvements that can make a big difference in this challenging environment.

“The data is also enabling us to much better drive the future strategy of the business, such as where the next openings should be and what they should look like.”

Keith Taylor, CFO, Equinix, said: “Data is incredibly important to every industry – including the restaurant business – but just having the data isn’t enough. It’s equally important to analyze and understand the data to derive insights to optimize operations, continually adapt and provide even more value to customers.

“As a leader at a company that helps businesses deploy, connect and scale their digital infrastructure to support the compute of data, I am excited to support and invest in a company like Yumpingo as they strive to enable restaurants to transform their business.”