Mario Carbone’s flagship restaurant in Greenwich Village has around 75 seats, representing one of the most sought-after reservations in New York City. For diners hoping to score a slot, the process is almost an art form—a blend of opening Resy at the exact right second, or knowing someone who knows someone. But for Carbone, deciding how to fill each of those seats is not only a science, but his entire business. “If I leave it to chance,” he tells me, “I have absolutely no idea what my revenue is going to be, as opposed to a really tight, systematic way of keeping track of my customers.”
Speaking in his chef’s whites outside of the new London outpost of his famous franchise last week, Carbone admits that he’s not big into technology, describing himself as a “pen and paper kind of guy.” But with a rapidly expanding empire through Major Food Group, the hospitality company he started with fellow celebrity restaurateurs Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick, pen and paper aren’t enough to track their global crowd of customers and keep them coming back.
To help solve the problem, Major Food Group is investing in Magic, a startup building AI-powered customer relationship management software, or a CRM, focused on experiences. Its first product, Loyalist, is targeted at the restaurant industry, with Major Food Group’s locations already using the software, along with some of the biggest names in fine dining, including Le Bernardin, Cosme, and Momofuku. The New York-based venture firm Lerer Hippeau led the $10 million seed round.
Maggie Tang, Magic’s founder and CEO, has spent most of her young career in the restaurant industry, scoring a job on the line at the three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn in high school after seeing the restaurant on Netflix’s Chef’s Table and sending a cold email. She started Magic after graduating from Wharton, having experienced first-hand how antiquated the tech stack is at restaurants—even at the world’s top restaurants—despite their access to an endless amount of customer data.
Anyone who has dined at a three-Michelin-star restaurant or watched The Bear from their couch at home knows the obsession around high-touch service is almost as critical as the food itself. As one famous industry anecdote goes, Will Guidara of Eleven Madison Park, where Tang briefly worked in dining room operations, once overheard a diner remark that they had yet to try to trademark New York City dirty water dog. He immediately dashed out to a nearby cart before delivering it on a plate with haute cuisine flourishes.
That level of detail isn’t exactly sustainable, but Tang aims for her software to help restaurants get close, which in turn can help them figure out what customers want, and more crucially, keep them coming back. Using the CRM, they can tap into details like what diners order and how often they visit, tailoring their experience—and marketing—to their preferences. Tang says that the inclusion of AI helps personalize language to a restaurant’s brand, as well as recommending actions, such as sending specific types of emails based on a customer’s history.
Carbone says that Loyalist’s ability to craft messaging in a restaurant’s voice is key to making any messaging not feel generic. “We certainly can’t be burying our head in the sands on technology,” he says. “I don’t think AI is coming for the captain and garde manger chef anytime soon, but where it can definitely affect our company is exactly here: It’s guest relations, it’s reservation management, and it’s the communication and movement of all of these people that we have to talk to every single day.”
And though Tang may now be Major Food Group’s business partner, she says she hasn’t tried to use the connection yet to score a seat at Carbone.
Leo Schwartz
X: @leomschwartz
Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Brook.ai, a Seattle, Wash.-based remote health care platform, raised $28 million in Series B funding. UMass Memorial Health and Morningside led the round.
- Planera, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based construction project management company, raised $8 million in funding. Sierra Ventures, Prudence, Brick & Mortar Ventures, and Sorenson Capital led the round and were joined by others.
- Dialogue AI, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based market research platform with live conversational AI technology, raised $6 million in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Seven Stars, Uncommon Projects, and others.
- Andel, a New York City-based pharmacy benefits cooperative platform, raised $4.5 million in funding from Lightbank, Seedcamp, Bertelsmann Investments, Houghton Street Ventures, and Springboard.
- Triplemoon, a Dallas, Texas-based mental health services platform for pediatric patients and their families, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Activate Venture Partners and LiveOak Ventures led the round.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- F2 Strategy, a portfolio company of Renovus Capital, acquired HBMJ Consulting, a New York City-based consulting firm designed for alternative investment firms. Financial terms were not disclosed.
PEOPLE
- Prysm Capital, a Princeton, N.J. and San Francisco-based venture capital firm, promoted Kerry Wei to partner.
