Olo is a New York City-based B2B

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is cons ...

company that develops digital ordering and delivery programs for restaurants. The company’s platform allows customers to place restaurant orders from multiple origination points – from a brand’s own website or app, third party marketplaces, social media platforms, smart speakers, and home assistants. It also provides restaurants with order analytics and other services.

History

Olo was founded as GoMobo in 2005 by Noah Glass in New Haven. Its initial product was a mobile phone app that allowed users to pre-order food via text message from coffee shops for pick-up. In 2010, the company changed its name to Olo ("online ordering") to reflect its change from being a customer-facing application to being a B2B software company, "invisible" to customers, used by restaurants to manage mobile device orders. ''

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'' reported in 2015 that restaurants using Olo software had served approximately 10 million customers. In 2017,

Shake Shack Shake Shack is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in New York City. It started out as a hot dog cart inside Madison Square Park in 2001, and its popularity steadily grew. In 2004, it received a permit to open a permanent kiosk with ...

launched the Shake App created by Olo; other restaurant brands using Olo software include

Denny’s Denny's (also known as Denny's Diner on some of the locations' signage) is an American table service diner-style restaurant chain. It operates over 1,700 restaurants in many countries. Description Originally opened as a coffee shop under t ...

and

Wingstop Wingstop Inc. is an American multinational chain of aviation-themed restaurants specializing in chicken wings. Wingstop locations follow a 1930s and 1940s pre-jet aviation theme. The restaurant chain was founded in 1994 in Garland, Texas ...

. In 2019, Olo formed a partnership with

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to provide the interface between

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The ...

and other Google applications to connect customers with local restaurants, allowing them to place orders directly, without using third-party ordering apps such as

Doordash DoorDash, Inc. is an American company that operates an online food ordering and food delivery platform. The company is based in San Francisco, California. It went public in December 2020 on NYSE and trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% mar ...

and

Postmates Postmates is a food delivery service, founded in 2011, and acquired by Uber in 2020. It offers local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California. , Postmates operates in 2,940 U.S. c ...

. ChowNow, a competitor B2B restaurant order-management SaaS company, has a similar arrangement with Google. Olo launched its IPO on March 17, 2021. Starting in August 2022, Olo stock plunged as restaurants delayed deploying their ordering software. This was followed by potential securities fraud, an investigation by Kaplan Fox, and a

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lawsuit by Bernstein Liebhard LLP.

Funding

The company has raised funds from Founder Collective,

RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is an American Venture capital, Venture Capital firm based in New York City. The firm primarily invests in Seed money, seed, Series A round, series A and series B rounds and focuses on companies operating in the software, internet, c ...

, Core Capital,

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, Staley Capital, the Raine Group,

Danny Meyer Daniel Meyer (born March 14, 1958) is a New York City restaurateur and the Founder & Executive Chairman of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). Background and early career Meyer was born and raised in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis, M ...

(CEO of

Union Square Hospitality Group Daniel Meyer (born March 14, 1958) is a New York City restaurateur and the Founder & Executive Chairman of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). Background and early career Meyer was born and raised in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis, M ...

), and private investors. In January 2020, ''

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'' reported that Olo might be seeking an IPO with a valuation of $1 billion. Those plans were put on hold due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The company went public in March 2021 with a valuation of $3.6 billion.

References

{{reflist, 2 Online food retailers of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange