Bestie Bite, a start-up that has developed an app dedicated to video reviews in the hospitality sector, has announced the closure of a new €1.5 million round of fresh capital, raised via a SAFE agreement and led by the Grassi family through their holding company G&G, a shareholder in the E80 Group. This additional capital has been raised just a few months after the first €700,000 round, bringing the total raised to €2.2 million and supporting the company’s consolidation in Italy and its expansion into the US market, with a new base in San Francisco.
The problem stems from two sides that are searching for one another but failing to connect. On the one hand, there are people – particularly the younger generations – who struggle to find restaurants, cafés and hotels they can trust: unreliable text-based reviews, fragmented information and content dominated by influencers and sponsorships make choosing a venue a real struggle. On the other is the hospitality sector, a sector made up of around 90% small businesses that rarely have the budget or marketing expertise to stand out online: valuable businesses that remain invisible just when customers are looking for them. Two problems that have become more acute since the pandemic, when discovery and booking habits have changed radically.
On the consumer side, Bestie Bite is an app that learns what you like and what you’re looking for, and uses artificial intelligence to guide you, through videos, towards the right choice more quickly and with greater confidence. Unlike traditional reviews, all content is subject to verification standards and rules regarding authenticity, authentication, fraud detection and AI video detection – standards not applied elsewhere: the result is a community where you can truly trust what you see. Reinforcing this virtuous circle is gamification, with a cashback system that rewards those who contribute authentic videos and finds its fullest expression in missions at partner restaurants, where the cashback is worth more and is directly linked to the business model.
On the business side, Bestie Bite is introducing the hospitality sector’s first “AI marketing employee”: an artificial intelligence system that takes the place of social media managers and marketing agencies. From a single authentic video created by the Bestie Bite community, it generates a full editorial plan for the following month and publishes it independently on the venue’s channels, without the restaurateur having to lift a finger, and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional agency. Added to this are sentiment analysis and performance insights to monitor service quality in real time.
Bestie Bite has seen significant organic growth: over 100,000 users reached and more than 120,000 videos uploaded across more than 80 countries worldwide, with several viral moments that have propelled the app into the top 10 most downloaded apps in Italy, outperforming global players on multiple occasions. Among the first structured use cases, Pescaria stands out, using the platform to obtain reusable video content and continuous analysis of the customer experience.
Among the objectives of this funding round are the consolidation of the company’s presence in Italy and, above all, its entry into the US market, with a base in San Francisco – a city the team had already explored earlier this year. The choice is no coincidence: San Francisco is the technology hub par excellence, but it is also one of the cities with the highest concentration of restaurants in the world, offering an ideal mix of small businesses and very strong consumer uptake.
During its time in the city, Bestie Bite has already forged its first partnerships with clients, including establishments such as Tony’s Pizza and North Beach Restaurant, and already boasts thousands of users and over 500 restaurants reviewed on the local market. Working with these businesses has confirmed the value of a service capable of bringing together both sides of the market: helping users discover authentic places they can trust and, at the same time, giving businesses—especially smaller ones—the tools to get noticed.
Bestie Bite is led by co-founders Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo, CEO, and Caterina Vertefeuille, COO, both of whom are serial entrepreneurs with experience in the hospitality sector. Caterina has built her career in hospitality marketing, working for major brands such as Barilla and international chains; Carlotta comes from a background as a sales manager in the same sector. Having worked together for over five years, they had already founded a start-up in the sustainability sector: their shared journey and first-hand experience of the issue led them to identify video as the most transparent and reliable format for showcasing a venue. In addition to the founders, the team includes Placido Falqueto, CTO (pictured).
“We want to revolutionise this market. Authenticity is the most valuable and scarce commodity on the web: we are building a new standard and a technological layer that brings the full power of artificial intelligence to restaurants, always starting with genuine content. With this funding round, we are expanding from Italy to the United States to make this the global standard,” the two co-founders said in a statement.
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