Bite Ninja, a startup that allows fast-food restaurants to staff their drive-thrus with remote employees, is being acquired.
The buyer is Voicify, another tech company focused on drive-thru ordering. Voicify makes conversational AI software that can take drive-thru and phone orders.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Voicify said that the deal will allow it to offer restaurants a hybrid approach to managing the drive-thru that combines Bite Ninja’s remote workers and Voicify’s AI.
It was unclear how exactly the two services will work in tandem, but Voicify said it will allow restaurants to cover 100% of drive-thru and phone orders.
With the deal, Voicify also gets Bite Ninja’s clientele of more than 15,000 restaurant locations. Bite Ninja works with franchises of several large restaurant brands.
Bite Ninja workers can take drive-thru orders from home. | Photo courtesy of Bite Ninja
Founded in 2020 by entrepreneur Will Clem, San Jose, California-based Bite Ninja has thousands of U.S.-based employees, or “Ninjas,” who use its software to beam into drive-thrus or kiosks and take orders. This allows in-store employees to focus on food and customer service.
The company says its technology can reduce labor costs by up to 50% and boost average ticket size by 22%. Bite Ninja has raised $15 million in venture capital to fuel its growth.
Boston-based Voicify was founded in 2018 and offers voice AI technology for a number of industries, including restaurants, healthcare and hotels.
The acquisition is part of a burst of activity around drive-thru automation. Over the past several years, many of the largest fast-food chains, including McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s, have begun testing or implementing voice AI to handle drive-thru order-taking. The idea is to make the drive-thru more efficient and allow employees to focus on other things.
But questions remain about the technology’s accuracy and its ability to manage things like regional accents and background noise. Today, a significant percentage of AI orders are still elevated to human workers either inside the restaurant or in call centers.
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