How Chowly’s Koala Purchase Expands Online Ordering Access for SMBs

Before acquiring Koala, the company’s first acquisition, Chowly executives knew they weren’t interested in buying just for the sake of a merger, said Chowly CEO Sterling Douglass. Finding acquisition targets with complementary cultures and brand missions was key to securing the interests of our customers.

“If you look at a lot of acquisitions in this space, especially when big companies buy smaller start-ups, they shut down within a year or two and you can’t achieve that synergy,” Douglass said. said Mr. DoorDash, for example, closed just 18 months after acquiring Chowbotics when it discovered its salad-making robot didn’t meet its internal standards.

“For me it’s really important that we focus [making] I am sure we will succeed together,” he said.

Consolidation of restaurant technology is still being driven by large amounts of venture capital raised by startups in 2019-2021, according to Douglas. The startup was created to provide specific tools for restaurants and market niches, such as pizza and independent restaurants, he said. As these companies have grown, several have merged with larger companies to focus on combined platforms, Douglas said. Toast, Lunchbox, DoorDash, and Olo are among the tech companies that have acquired new concepts within this year.

Acquiring Koala’s online ordering capabilities makes sense for Chowly, which integrates its POS system with third-party marketplaces. Douglass says that building an online ordering platform in-house and running it successfully can seem like a daunting task. Olo works well in the enterprise space, but for SMB companies, Douglass feels that online ordering platforms fall into two classes. backend.

“Restaurant is a very complicated business model,” says Douglas. “It’s very rare to find an online ordering company that does both well.”

Chowly is an expert at moving data between systems, but he said becoming a user experience expert would be too big a task. His Koala expertise in the front end allows Chowly to combine both focuses in his one.

Koala offers many features not found in e-commerce sites that sell traditional online ordering tools. For example, Koala focuses on improving conversion rates so that if a customer initiates an order, they eventually complete it. The technology also tracks ordering patterns to provide upselling recommendations and which items are well paired, Douglas said. But Koala’s biggest advantage, he said, is its ability to offer enterprise-level online ordering to Chowly’s small business clients.

“Chowly is always trying to simplify technology for restaurants. [with Koala]said Douglas.

Many restaurants are looking for a one-stop platform, but many choose companies based on the platform that performs a particular task well. Douglas said his point-of-sale company that ventures into online ordering may not fare as well as companies that specialize in online ordering. He said it’s important for restaurants to evaluate different options to ensure their choices generate more revenue.

Chowly does not plan to integrate products with Koala anytime soon, and plans to launch additional products in about six months. Restaurants can sign up to participate in beta testing and learn about new products.