SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Waitwhile, a queue management platform built to eliminate wait times, today announced CRV invested $12 million as part of its Series A financing round. The company will use the new capital to invest in three strategic areas: growing the company’s technical team, expanding into new markets and continuing to broaden Waitwhile’s enterprise offering.
To date, Waitwhile has worked with thousands of companies, including Applebee’s, IKEA, Louis Vuitton, and Patagonia, to revolutionize the wait experience for over 80 million guests. Collectively, the company has given people back over 400,000 days that would have otherwise been wasted waiting in line.
“People spend a staggering one trillion hours every year standing in lines. That’s an incredible amount of human potential to unlock,” says Chris Klemming, CEO and co-founder of Waitwhile. “Our goal is to create a magical experience for customers. We want to see a world where waiting in line doesn’t feel like waiting at all. CRV’s long track record with high-growth, early-stage successes made them the perfect partner for us.”
Waitwhile helps businesses turn their existing physical wait lines into virtual lines in minutes, saving time and eliminating the frustration caused by pointless waiting. It allows businesses to integrate queue features directly into existing applications through its API. In the background, the platform automatically learns about wait times, resource constraints and guest preferences to help businesses reduce wait times and improve operations.
"From clothing stores who can now craft bespoke one-on-one styling sessions to surgery centers that can keep nervous family members informed of their patient's progress, Waitwhile has turned a once despised activity into an opportunity for companies to strengthen their bond and engagement with customers in a meaningful way,” says Kristin Baker Spohn, General Partner at CRV. “There's elegance in Waitwhile's simplicity that both big brands and their customers adore. We were blown away by Waitwhile's momentum, activation and traction. We are excited to see the team continue to grow and flourish given that literally anything with a physical location could be a customer for them."
For businesses and customers, it takes less than three minutes to sign up for Waitwhile. Using the platform, businesses can keep customers updated about their place in line through SMS and emails or through physical displays, such as in a waiting room. Customers can sign up online or in-store. Businesses also receive visit analytics and customer insights to automatically improve operations.
In addition to announcing its Series A, Waitwhile is also introducing a series of new features to the platform. These include:
- Integration with Google Maps: Now, people can see the current wait times at places of interest and join waitlists directly from Google Maps
- Connecting pre-scheduled appointments and walk-ins: When someone joins a Waitwhile-powered list, they have the option of joining a line immediately or making an appointment on a specific date and time. Waitwhile combines these requests into a single list of guests for the business to monitor and serve.
- New API and single sign-on: Waitwhile makes it easy to incorporate queue management functionalities – including wait time estimation models, scheduling, guest lifecycle events, and queue analytics – into the existing products and applications of any business through our powerful API.
Waitwhile is available to organizations of all sizes in every industry and supported on iOS and Android devices.
About Waitwhile
Founded in 2017, Waitwhile builds a suite of queue-eliminating products for businesses to improve their waiting experiences and make better use of their customers' valuable time. The product solves all aspects of queuing - from letting guests check in online, showing wait times and keeping everyone informed via SMS and email. It gives businesses visit analytics and customer insights to improve operations. Waitwhile is located out of San Francisco and trusted by brands like Mercedes-Benz, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, LinkedIn, Tribeca Film Festival, Ubisoft, Nokia, State of Colorado, Midstate Hospital, Nevada State College and Texas University.
About CRV
CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage enterprise, consumer and biotech startups. Since 1970, the firm has invested in more than 400 startups at their most crucial stages, including DoorDash, Twitter, Zendesk, Airtable, Patreon, Cybereason, Drift, Kong and Iterable. Founders need more than capital to build a great company. It takes a partner who understands the entrepreneurial journey and knows what it takes to win. From founding to IPO and beyond, CRV is there every step of the way. Founders rely on CRV to be trusted, long-term, committed partners, which has helped make CRV into one of the longest-running venture capital firms in the world. Learn more about CRV and the companies shaping the future at https://www.crv.com.
