Embargo bags £350,000 UK Smart Grant to build an automated AI driven CRM platform for hospitality firms.
Hospitality tech business Embargo has been awarded a UK Smart Grant by the UK government to develop an AI model for its CRM and loyalty platform.
Embargo is used by nearly 2,500 food and drinks SMEs. Founded by Fryderyk Szydlowski and Tsewang Wangkang, it allows restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries to reward regulars, capture data, communicate with their customers and offer direct ordering for delivery and pickup, while consumers use the firm’s app as a digital wallet for paperless loyalty cards offered by hospitality brands.
Szydlowski said, “We are about to reach half a million app transactions monthly, which is a great testimonial to the work we put in to make our solution easy to use and absolutely best in class for both businesses and their customers.”
The £350,000 Smart Grant will allow it to build a fully automated, AI driven CRM platform for hospitality businesses. By capturing and analysing a range of customer data – cross referencing what they purchase and how often against the time of day, day of the week, weather and more – the model will help businesses enhance their marketing, pricing, loyalty and communication strategies.
Wangkang commented, “Our mission is to help the tens of thousands of hospitality SMEs to tackle the major challenges they continue to face. Increases in running costs thanks to rising wages, inflation and the incoming National Insurance changes make this ever more important – the sector needs help.”
“We are beyond excited to receive this grant and take our mission to the next level. SMEs deserve the highest level of technology in an easy to use, scalable form. We have already shown that our platform has a major impact on our customers’ growth – our AI development will now make it even more powerful, giving businesses tools they never had.”
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Embargo is also finalising its EIS funding round, which will be used to fuel market penetration, revenue growth and further develop the platform.
Szydlowski added, “Our cash efficient strategy and product-led growth have attracted fantastic investors to our round. We are looking to oversubscribe it given the interest we have received and use the fact that we still have EIS allocation left. There’s a lot of work ahead of us but we couldn’t be more excited. Hospitality SMEs need powerful, easy to use solutions more than ever and we are here to provide them. It is time to accelerate.”
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