Adam Guild@adamguild
I’m feeling blessed to share: Owner raised $120M Series C and is now at a $1B valuation 🦄
Mom-and-pop restaurant owners are being crushed by huge corporations.
We’re using this cash to arm them to fight back.
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This round was co-led by 2 perfect partners for us:
Alex Kurland from Meritech, who led DoorDash’s Series B, and Shalini Rao from Headline, who led Toast’s Series C.
They were also joined by an inspiring group of new investors: Fidji Simo (CEO Instacart), Jonathan Neman (CEO Sweetgreen), Garrett Langley (CEO Flock Safety).
& still more inspiring new investors...
Dharmesh Shah (CTO HubSpot), Josh Reeves (CEO Gusto), Shaan Puri (MFM), Matteo Franceschetti (CEO Eight Sleep), Anthony Pompliano, Sahil Bloom, Christina Cacioppo (CEO Vanta), Brett Schulman (CEO Cava), Matt Maloney (Founder & CEO GrubHub).
… just to name a few. :)
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Today, technology is being weaponized against small business owners.
Corporations like Domino’s dominate. Why?
Because they spend billions on tech, engineers, and marketers.
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Small business owners are forced to compete with corporations that have massive war chests.
But with Owner, they can do more than compete. They can win.
We’re building the platform that gives them the power.
We serve the people who serve our communities.
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I started Owner 7 years ago, after dropping out of high school halfway through 10th grade.
The first version of Owner wasn’t built for venture capital.
It was built for my mom.
She’s a small business owner who just needed a shot at success in the digital world.
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I remember watching her worry that we’d lose her business and our house. In a moment of desperation, she asked her weird :) nerdy 17-year-old son to help her.
I built a solution for her. That was Owner V1. When it started to work, I saw my mom transform.
She went from being constantly stressed about money to feeling hopeful and excited about her future.
The Owner team has now seen that same transformation happen for thousands of small business owners like her.
That’s what drives us.
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You can think of Owner as Shopify for restaurants—and, eventually, all local business owners. It gives them everything they need to succeed in the online future, in one place.
Owner is their website, online ordering, mobile app, CRM. It all works together as one system.
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Owner is also continuously optimized with what we learn from the thousands of restaurants and the more than 57 million consumers who have used our platform.
It’s the only system designed for one outcome: growing sales profitably.
It gives independent owners enough firepower to take on the big corporations, and win.
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Shoutout to the great team at @Owner —
You deserve the credit for getting us here.
I thank God every morning that I get to build Owner with each of you. We wouldn’t be here without you.
We have a special team. Each of you represents greatness.
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And shoutout to the best cofounder and CTO I could ever ask for, @DeanBloembergen.
His work ethic and genius are as impressive as his character.
I view partnering with Dean as one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
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I’m proud of Owner today.
But I also feel scared that people will see our unicorn valuation and think “we’ve made it.”
So let me be brutally clear. We HAVE NOT made it.
And if we start to believe we have, we never will.
When investors value us at $1B, it’s because they see potential.
Our investors see the POTENTIAL for us to build a company worth tens of billions.
We have to prove them right.
And we must also prove right the thousands of restaurant owners who’ve bet their futures on us.
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We’re still underdogs. We still have a long way to go.
We didn’t come this far just to come this far.
It’s time to move faster, build better, and fight harder!
We have millions of small business owners counting on us.
