CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chowly, a restaurant technology company that integrates third-party delivery marketplaces with point-of-sale (POS) systems, today announced its acquisition of Koala, a guest experience platform that empowers established and emerging restaurant brands to elevate their digital ordering experience across web, app and kiosk to drive immediate results. The combined business will represent over 16,000 restaurant locations on the platform, integrating over 350,000 orders per day across the US.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Koala to the Chowly team,” said Sterling Douglass, co-founder and CEO, Chowly. “Merging these two businesses together represents a major leap forward in the mission of both organizations as we help restaurants navigate today’s complicated digital world. Koala’s open platform meshes perfectly with Chowly’s, while also giving restaurants a simpler experience for their off-premise strategies. We plan on bringing Koala’s best-in-class enterprise-grade ordering to the SMB restaurant space and blend our partnership ecosystems while continuing to support their success in the enterprise restaurant space.”
“Chowly and Koala have long held a deep alignment of mission, core values and culture, making this an ideal partnership for helping our customers reach new levels of success,” said Nat Trienens, CEO, Koala. “We’re excited to take this next step in the evolution of our guest experience platform as we carry the momentum forward with Chowly’s world-class team and technology.”
Through this combination, tens of thousands of SMB and independent restaurant owners will soon gain access to a more sophisticated and holistic solution, including enterprise-grade online ordering, advanced data analytics, and proven machine learning recommendation engines for increasing basket sizes. Sophisticated native iOS apps, open platforms, and multi-platform support have long been relegated to the largest of enterprises, but are now being democratized for the independent restaurateur.
The leadership team at Koala, Walter Beller-Morales, Melanie Norton and Brett Spiegel will play a critical role in integrating the two companies’ solutions in conjunction with Chowly’s leadership. Koala’s CEO Nat Trienens will remain temporarily to help shepherd the integration of the two companies.
Chowly brings significant scale to the expanded organization, representing more than 12,000 locations and 3,000 brands. The company has delivered a consistent record of product innovation, best-in-class implementation time and POS integrations, and a strong value-driven sales team. By adding Koala’s strengths with product-leading features such as top tier conversion rates, enterprise-grade stability, a highly-customizable user experience and a machine learning engine for recommendations to maximize basket size, the combined company will be positioned for significant growth as a market leader.
Chowly and Koala’s teams are already hard at work building a product combination that the restaurant space has yet to see for SMB brands. More information about the combined product will be released in the coming months.
About Koala
Koala is a guest experience platform that empowers restaurants to elevate their guest-facing digital touchpoints and increase sales. Koala’s SaaS technology enables both established and emerging brands to quickly launch, manage and optimize commerce and guest engagement across web, app and kiosks, all in one place. Koala is trusted by over 40 brands across more than 4,000 locations to deliver elevated digital experiences to their guests.
About Chowly
Chowly is a leading POS integration company that enables restaurants to expand and maintain their off-premise capabilities. Chowly seamlessly integrates orders from the industry’s largest platforms – such as Grubhub, Ubereats, Doordash, Google and hundreds more – directly into a restaurant’s POS system. Chowly's solution features over 12,000 restaurants and continues to solidify the company's mission of simplifying technology for restaurants. To learn more, visit https://chowly.com/.
