Atlanta-based Popmenu Stays Local With First Acquisition

It may just be a match made in local foodie heaven. 

Following this summer’s $65 million Series C announcement, Popmenu says it plans to acquire local RestaurantTech startup and recent Techstars Atlanta graduate OrderNerd.

The deal brings together startups addressing various pain points restauranteurs face. Popmenu is an all-in-one platform for restaurants to engage and retain more customers through a better digital presence.

OrderNerd helps restaurants navigate the ever-growing number of delivery services and apps available. 

“There was a clear alignment on vision and purpose and there was clear chemistry…and either we could become competitors or become allies,” said OrderNerd’s co-founder and CEO Stephen Gladney said. 

Brendan Sweeney, co-founder and CEO of Popmenu, first heard about OrderNerd through a local restaurant client. Impressed by its functionality and UX — and the fact that it was built by a local team — caused the Popmenu team to first reach out. They see OrderNerd’s integration options as a way for restaurants to find new loyal customers through different delivery services. 

“All the conversations we’ve had just continued to show we had a very similar way of thinking, a very similar way of approaching the market and tech, and very similar empathy for restaurant owners,” Sweeney told Hypepotamus. “It was really just serendipity that we found [OrderNerd], but since then everything seemed obvious.”  

For the OrderNerd team, the acquisition aligns with their goal to be the “technology nerds” powering restaurants. “We started with third-party aggregation because that was a clear problem that we knew how to solve for. Once we built our customer base, we began to learn about other problems the restauranteurs have, like dealing with huge commissions, updating websites, and terrible WiFi,” added Gladney.

 

OrderNerd co-founder Stephen Gladney

 

OrderNerd will continue to work under Popmenu’s umbrella and the two teams are actively working to figure out how to most seamlessly integrate the two platforms together for customers.  

Beyond the RestaurantTech space, Sweeney sees the acquisition as a sign of maturity for the overall Atlanta ecosystem. 

“The entrepreneurial base in this community is getting better and more sophisticated,” he told Hypepotamus. “It’s getting to where you can do more ambitious things without having to go buy somebody in San Francisco or get bought by somebody in San Francisco…and I think that’s a big signal that these kinds of plays are becoming more possible within the market.”

 

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Feature Photo: Popmenu CEO Brendan Sweeney