ResQ raises $7.5 million to make back of the house top of mind
By Natasha Mascarenhas
Entrepreneur Kuljeev Singh has had a three-course meal in the restaurant business. He was an angel investor in ChefHero, a part-time owner in an Australian-style meat pie shop and, now, is the founder of ResQ, a startup that helps restaurants repair and service their equipment through contractor work.
Sitting at multiple seats at the table showed Singh the “unfortunate reality of what it takes to run a restaurant.” Weeks into buying that meat pie shop, Singh watched tens of thousands of dollars burn due to failing equipment and contractor issues.
“I realized [that] I have so much support at the front of the house to drive revenue to the door, but I have no technology to support the back of the house,” he said. Singh soon realized that his pain point was shared by many other restaurant owners, which seeded the idea for ResQ, a startup all about optimizing the back of the house, or noncustomer-facing, operation for restaurants.
ResQ announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Homebrew, Golden Ventures and Inovia Capital. Participating angel investors include Nilam Ganenthiran, president at Instacart; Gokul Rajaram, DoorDash executive and board member of Pinterest and Coinbase; as well as customers, including Soul Foods, a global franchisee of Yum! Brands. ResQ has now raised $9 million in known venture capital to date.
The capital will primarily help ResQ double or triple its 60-person team across engineering, sales and operation roles. The company will also earmark money toward launching in new markets, building atop its current presence in San Francisco, LA, Dallas, Chicago and Phoenix.
