London-based Embargo, UK’s and Poland’s leading Customer Data Engine and loyalty superplatform for coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries and other high street businesses, raised a £684K ($870,000) funding round with the participation of Opoka TFI (a Warsaw-based investment fund), Pierre Decote (Global Chief Risk Officer of Revolut), Pawel Fornalski (founder of e-commerce platform IdoSell), Tibor Pleiss (ex-NBA Player), Andi Obst (Basketball World Cup winner) and other angel investors.

The platform was founded by Tsewang Wangkang, ex-investment banker at JP Morgan and UBS, and Frederick Szydlowski, ex-Head of Marketing of several hospitality businesses in London, with a mission to provide any-size hospitality businesses with a customer-data and loyalty-driven technology. The company has shown a strong x400% revenue growth in the past 24 months, with over 1,500 venues on the platform, during some of the most challenging times for both technology startups and the hospitality industry. Embargo has doubled down on their multi-product strategy, too, adding multiple new features like delivery ordering, click&collect, staff tipping, POS integrations and more.

Embargo’s CEO and co-founder Tsewang Wangkang says:

“We’ve always wanted to build a business with a clear path to profitability and a healthy business model without sacrificing growth. Driving retention, being able to capture and use high-quality data to actively manage your customer-base have never been more important than today. The inflation and increasing costs for business owners force not only major international brands like Starbucks or McDonalds to heavily invest into customer data and rewards technology, but even more SMEs. Our multiproduct strategy creates a win-win setup. Currently our partners manage to triple the frequency of customer visits and save even up to 3 times on commissions”

The hospitality sector has followed the footsteps of the biggest supermarket retailers, hotel chains and airlines, which had been investing in data and loyalty solutions for many years in the form the famous Tesco ClubCard, Nectar Points or BA Miles,
Whilst only few major global brands in the F&B sector have the resources to spend millions on their own solutions, Embargo has been proving to be the remedy for the 70%* of the hospitality market who can now launch their own customer data-driven  digital loyalty card, ordering system and CRM within a few days and a monthly subscription on the platform.
The large go-to-market, growing need and continuous growth has attracted investors who know the SME space extremely well.

Pierre Decote, the Chief Risk Officer and Partner at Revolut, commented his investment into Embargo:

“There is a big opportunity to revolutionise the traditional loyalty solutions and help merchants deepen their relationship with their customers base through the power of data. Actionable data and loyalty tools have been a goldmine for big retailers, as of recently also for the biggest international food and drinks chains. But thanks to Embargo this can now be harnessed for any size merchants creating a retention driven network effect for the high street ecosystem. Embargo is well positioned to leverage opportunities in that space with their multi product strategy and the right team behind it.”

 Opoka TFI, a Warsaw-based private equity and venture capital fund, has been following the Embargo’s successful expansion in Poland, CEE’s largest market, for the last two years and decided to participate in the startup’s latest funding round.

Opoka’s CEO, Tomasz Tarczynski, commented:

“We’ve had the chance to follow Embargo’s growth very closely, especially in the last two years. Seeing their dynamic growth, despite numerous macroeconomic challenges, successful expansion into the Polish market with a small team, and determination in executing their plans, we have recognized that they stand a great chance to create a scalable, rapidly growing business. The hospitality market has never faced as many challenges as in recent years, and Embargo has demonstrated that they can be a crucial support for this industry, which is heavily dominated by SMEs.”

The company plans to use the funds to increase the size of their sales team and invest further in new features in line with their multi-product strategy.

Embargo’s co-founder Frederick Szydlowski comments:

“The size of our team has pretty much remained the same whilst we continued to grow our customer base, product and above all multiplied revenues. Although we plan to add more people to our sales team, developing the platform together with our partners, will remain our key focus and will allow us to provide an even more powerful product to the hospitality industry, whilst also continuously increasing our revenue per customer.”

Rebecca Stevenson, founder of SIGNORELLI, ex Global Head of Property at Deliveroo says:

“Amid rising costs, focusing on customer data has become our recipe for success. By leveraging technology and platforms like Embargo, we’re turning data crumbs into meaningful insights. This allows us to trim unnecessary costs, while doubling down on understanding and serving our customers better. In essence, being data-driven is not taking away our instincts, it’s about baking a resilient, adaptable, and customer-centric business model. With technology and data, we’re equipped to rise to any challenge. Our over 65,000 transactions via Embargo also show how much our customers embraced the platform.”

*https://londonlovesbusiness.com/small-and-medium-businesses-dominate-hospitality-industry-making-up-68-of-all-businesses/

Source: Study by School of Marketing based on the latest ONS and Government Data