2021 was a big year for restaurant tech IPOs. Toast and Olo both went public that year, riding a wave of pandemic-fueled growth. Add in DoorDash, which IPO’d in December 2020, and it felt like the party was just beginning for restaurant tech on Wall Street.
Investor appetite for such companies has cooled considerably since then: Over the past five years, there have been no significant restaurant tech IPOs, and several previously public companies, including Olo, are now private again after struggling to win over public investors.
There are a few reasons for that. Restaurant tech remains a highly competitive and fragmented market. And though restaurants have been adopting a lot more technology in recent years, they still spend relatively little on tech.
That said, the sector’s IPO drought could end soon, as there are at least two companies preparing to make the leap in the near future.
The list of IPO prospects after that, though, is short and rather speculative. But there are certainly arguments to be made for a handful of other companies.
This list is based on publicly available information and conversations with industry observers. Unless otherwise noted, none of these companies have said publicly that they are considering an IPO (and many of them probably never will!)
Likely IPOs:
GrubMarket
I have to admit, I was not familiar with GrubMarket before it filed confidentially for an IPO in late July. It is one of the many food tech companies looking to digitize the supply chain for restaurants and grocers, allowing businesses to order produce and other goods online from a nationwide network of wholesalers.
It has grown via a series of acquisitions and has a valuation of $4.5 billion. It has also faced regulatory scrutiny: Last year, it settled charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it overstated its revenue by more than $500 million.
Wonder
An IPO has been on the road map for the sprawling food hall/delivery company since at least 2023. More recently, Wonder has said it wants to be “IPO-ready” by early next year. A $650 million funding round last month valued the company at $9 billion.
Unlike other companies on this list, Wonder is both an operator of restaurants and, as the owner of Grubhub, a supplier. But it is unabashedly high-tech, with a delivery-centric business model and plans to automate much of its operations using robotics and AI.
As a fun side note, a Wonder IPO would make Grubhub public in the U.S. once again following its sale to Just Eat Takeaway in 2021.
Definitely maybe:
Restaurant365
Tony Smith, CEO and co-founder of the back-office management platform, noted that an IPO was a possibility in a 2024 interview with the Orange County Business Journal.
The company meets a few of the prerequisites: It was valued at more than $1 billion after a $135 million funding round in 2024; it has reportedly surpassed $100 million in annual revenue; and it works with some of the country’s largest restaurant brands, including Wendy’s, Jack in the Box, Popeyes, and IHOP.
However, most of those financial numbers are from two or three years ago, and there have been no IPO updates from R365 since.
In the conversation:
Owner
The fast-growing software provider for mom-and-pops checks a lot of boxes for a potential IPO. It just raised $240 million in a Series D, valuing it at $2.3 billion. It unveiled a suite of AI agents and has begun calling itself “AI-native,” which is sure to catch the eye of investors. It has achieved the $100 million annual revenue benchmark and works with “thousands” of restaurants, with plans to expand into other small businesses. And it recently launched a POS system, signaling ambitions beyond online ordering and marketing software.
SpotOn
The POS company is large and mature, having raised a $300 million Series F round at a $3.6 billion valuation way back in 2022. Based on its own reports of ongoing momentum, it is likely bigger than that now, though exact figures weren’t available. It has also continued to expand its technology, most recently with new AI-powered tools for growing profits. SpotOn competes with the publicly traded Toast, Square, and Clover for small- and medium-sized restaurants. It’s a big but competitive market that has proven able to support multiple public companies.
InKind
The restaurant financing company has been growing rapidly in recent years, going from 1,000 restaurants on its network in 2022 to more than 8,500 today. It has raised more than $1 billion in capital this year alone to help fund 10,000 more restaurants, including $175 million from Citi, signaling some interest from Wall Street. Meanwhile, about 5 million people use InKind’s consumer-facing app to purchase dining credits at member restaurants. The company is profitable and has momentum, and its unique model gives it a competitive advantage. Reliable valuation and revenue details were not publicly available, however.
Maybe someday:
Atoms
The new company created by Uber founder Travis Kalanick encompasses the CloudKitchens ghost kitchen network as well as businesses focused on transportation and mining. Its goal is to “digitize the physical world” using AI and specialized robotics, and it recently raised a whopping $1.7 billion. Kalanick has major ambitions for the company, such as making food delivery as affordable as groceries. An eventual IPO does not seem out of the question, but little is known about Atoms’ finances at this point, and a filing is probably not imminent.
Honorable mentions:
Crunchtime: The back-of-house software provider reached the $100 million annual revenue threshold in 2024. After merging with QSR Automations last year, the combined company serves 90% of the 50 largest restaurant chains in the U.S.
Deliverect: The online ordering system raised $150 million in 2022, making it one of a handful of restaurant tech firms valued at more than $1 billion.
ezCater: A planned 2021 IPO was derailed by the pandemic. A revived plan never came to fruition. Could a third time be the charm for the online catering giant?