36Kr Exclusive | "Chowbus" Raises $81 Million in Funding, Leveraging AI to Become North America's Preferred SaaS for Food Service Brands

Why can transforming from a food delivery platform to SaaS enhance competitiveness?

36Kr has learned that the leading North American restaurant SaaS company “Chowbus” has announced the completion of a new funding round of $81 million, bringing its total funding to $209 million. This round was led by Prysm Capital and Left Lane Capital, with follow-on investments from Dutchess, Fika, Avid Bank, and others. The funding will focus on two main areas: AI business development and global expansion.

Chowbus is a company that 36Kr has been closely following. Founded in 2016, it has been deeply engaged in the North American market for ten years and has achieved comprehensive business coverage across the U.S. and Canada. With its “North American local gene + deep adaptation across all categories” characteristics, Chowbus has become a core partner for numerous Chinese restaurant brands expanding overseas, such as Jasmine Milk Tea, Auntie Hu, Nayuki, Cha Bai Dao, Shuyi Burnt Grass, Teahua Nong, Xiao Long Kan, Wallace, and Ziyan Baiwei Chicken, as well as North American local Asian restaurant brands like Chuan Shan Jia, Zhe Li, and Chubby Group.

More than two years have passed since its last funding round. During this time, the company completed a key transformation—from the “Asian food delivery platform” familiar to the outside world to a SaaS service provider focused on Asian dining.

After selling its food delivery business in 2024, Chowbus has fully concentrated on cloud POS and its ecosystem. It has now built a complete product matrix covering front, middle, and back office: the front end provides self-service ordering, order pickup calling, brand customization skins, and dedicated apps to enhance experience and brand consistency; the back end connects the front hall, kitchen, and delivery operations through the KDS smart kitchen display system to improve meal preparation efficiency; the middle platform is based on a cloud platform that provides operational modules such as membership, CRM, employee management, and data analysis.

Focusing on AI, first product adopted by nearly a thousand restaurants in two months

Chowbus began its exploration of AI at the end of 2024. In January of this year, the company launched its first AI product—AI Digital Ads, which helps restaurants automatically run ads on platforms like Google Maps. Previously, restaurants needed to spend two to three thousand dollars a month for such advertising, while Chowbus’s AI tool charges only $300 per month, bringing in 50-150 customers to the restaurant, making the customer acquisition cost only $2-6.

“After two months of launch, nearly a thousand restaurants are already using it,” Chowbus founder and CEO Wen Linxin told 36Kr.

It is reported that Chowbus will also launch products such as AI Marketing Calendar, AI Phone Answering, and AI Data Insights, covering all aspects of restaurant marketing, customer service, and operations to more comprehensively address the digital operation shortcomings of dining brands.

For example, the AI Marketing Calendar can automatically plan social media content for restaurants; AI Phone Answering addresses the pain points of phone ordering and locating; AI Data Insights sends daily operational reports to restaurants, highlighting actionable items for optimization. “It’s like having an AI restaurant steward with multiple assistants helping in different areas.”

Regarding the AI strategy, Wen Linxin stated, “In this era, AI is not a choice; it’s a necessity.” Harley Miller, managing partner at lead investor Left Lane Capital, remarked: “Chowbus is leveraging AI to enter these massive service areas, providing capabilities that are ten times more efficient than traditional solutions.”

Accelerating global expansion with Canada as the first stop

In terms of customer structure, Chowbus has deeply bound itself with a large number of Chinese overseas brands and North American local Asian restaurant brands. Wen Linxin describes the relationship as a “revolutionary friendship”: “We provide local knowledge (compliance, tipping culture, employee integration), and they bring advanced concepts.”

He has observed that Chinese brands expanding into the U.S. are showing new characteristics: initial store openings are slow (the first store may take 6-12 months), but once opened, they are “very profitable,” with stable revenue over time. “The U.S. is a place suitable for long-term business, with high customer loyalty. Many brands have single-store revenues that increase rather than decrease over two years.”

Now, aside from AI, regional expansion has become another growth focus for Chowbus in the next phase—Chowbus has primarily covered business districts in first-tier cities, and by 2026, second and third-tier cities will become the expansion focus. Additionally, Canada will serve as a new starting point for accelerating global expansion.

Overall, the North American restaurant SaaS market is highly competitive, but Wen Linxin remains calm: “We are a modernized all-in-one solution targeting Asian restaurants; currently, we are the only one in the market with this positioning.” For the future, he has a positive outlook: tenfold growth in three years. “The market is far from saturated; we don’t have enough manpower in first-tier cities. With the addition of AI product purchases, expansion into second and third-tier cities, and exploration in Canada, the growth path is clear.”