Stockholm-based restaurant tech company Baemingo has grown revenue fivefold in just 18 months. Now its coffers are being topped up with fresh capital, intended for acquiring competitors and building a financial super-platform for the restaurant industry.
The Round
Investment company Supermarket, founded by media entrepreneur Christian Albinsson and business angel Johan Siwers, is putting nearly SEK10 million (€900K, $1M) into Baemingo. The money will go toward acquisitions and the company’s ambition to become Europe’s leading financial platform for the restaurant industry.
The round was quickly fully subscribed when the company was presented to Supermarket’s network earlier this year. Johan Siwers explained why the opportunity caught investors’ attention: “This isn’t just another point-of-sale system. Baemingo has built up more than 4,000 customer relationships and sits right in the middle of restaurants’ payment flows and data. The opportunity to build financial services on top of that position, while the market consolidates, is what makes this case really exciting.”
The Traction
Baemingo currently has more than 4,000 restaurants, cafés, and bars connected to its platform across multiple European markets. Over 18 months, revenue has surged from around SEK20 million to over SEK100 million, and the business is cash-flow positive.
The Strategy
The next step is to build further on the company’s data and payment flows, and sell more financial services to restaurants. The founders describe this as a new layer built on top of the existing technology.
Joar Wilk, founder and CTO of Baemingo, explained the thinking: “We have never had the ambition to just build a better point-of-sale system. Our technology and our payments have given us the distribution, the customer relationship, and the data. Now we’re building the financial layer on top. The goal is for the restaurant owner to be able to run and develop an ever-larger part of their finances through Baemingo.”
Part of the capital will go toward acquisitions in a fragmented European market. CEO Faje Gani was clear, however, that this isn’t about buying revenue for its own sake, but about building scale.
