Curate's $10M Fund to Fix Restaurant Loyalty Without Another App

LOS ANGELES, CA – January 28, 2026 – Hospitality technology firm Curate Technologies has secured $10 million in a new funding round to tackle one of the most persistent problems in the restaurant industry: customers don't want to download another app. The round was led by ZoomInfo co-founder Kirk Brown, with significant backing from venture capital firm K5 Global and a roster of strategic investors including NFL star Amon-Ra St. Brown and Pieology founder Carl Cheng.

Curate is betting that its novel approach—using Apple App Clips to create instant, white-labeled mobile experiences—can help restaurants break free from their dependency on third-party delivery marketplaces, which can charge commissions as high as 30% per order. The company's platform aims to solve what it calls the industry's "adoption problem," offering the sophisticated features of a native app with the ease of accessing a website.

Escaping the App Store Trap

For years, restaurants have faced a difficult choice: build their own branded app and struggle with low customer adoption, or surrender a significant portion of their revenue and invaluable customer data to delivery giants like DoorDash and Uber Eats. According to Curate's analysis, the latter has become the default, with less than 5% of all restaurant delivery orders being placed directly and commission-free.

"Restaurants do not have an ordering problem, they have an adoption problem," said Grant Russell, CEO and Co-Founder of Curate. He argues that the single biggest hurdle between a restaurant and its customer is the friction of the app download. Curate's solution sidesteps this entirely by leveraging Apple App Clips, a feature that allows users to access a small part of an app's functionality on demand.

When a customer scans a QR code, taps an NFC tag, or clicks a link, Curate instantly launches a full-featured, restaurant-branded experience for ordering and loyalty enrollment. There is no need to visit the App Store, wait for a download, and create a new account. This seamless entry point has proven effective, with Curate's early adopters reporting a threefold average increase in commission-free delivery orders within the first six months.

A Vote of Confidence from Industry Heavyweights

The $10 million capital injection is more than just financial fuel; it's a significant vote of confidence from leaders in both technology and hospitality. Lead investor Kirk Brown's experience co-founding and scaling the B2B data behemoth ZoomInfo underscores the perceived value of Curate's data-centric approach. Institutional support from K5 Global, a firm known for backing disruptive technology companies, further validates the market opportunity.

The participation of Carl Cheng, the founder of the national fast-casual chain Pieology, provides a crucial endorsement from the restaurant world itself. His investment signals a belief that Curate's platform is a practical solution for multi-location brands struggling with fragmented technology and shrinking margins. The involvement of high-profile figures like Amon-Ra St. Brown also points to the platform's broad appeal.

This new funding will be used to scale the platform's reach to more multi-location restaurant brands and to further develop its core offerings: commission-free direct ordering, loyalty programs, and its AI-powered marketing engine.

Reclaiming Profits and Customer Data

The economic impact of shifting customers from third-party marketplaces to a direct channel is profound. By eliminating commissions that can climb to 30%, restaurants can immediately improve the profitability of every online order. The results from Curate's initial partners illustrate this potential.

"Curate's loyalty was a huge win for us," said Jimmy Lee, Co-founder of Mama Hieu's. "After switching from Toast Online Ordering to Curate, our direct online sales increased 44.3% across takeout and delivery. It's the first time our direct ordering channel has felt like a real habit for customers."

Similarly, Da Vien Coffee, a small chain with just four locations, saw remarkable growth. "In our first three months with Curate, we hit the #74 most popular app on the App Store (Food & Drink) with just four locations, and it showed up in the numbers," said Co-founder Anne Nguyen. "Revenue grew 30% year over year, and our loyalty members now average over 7.4 visits per year."

Beyond the immediate financial benefits, the platform returns ownership of first-party customer data to the restaurant. This allows operators to understand their guests' purchasing habits, build direct relationships, and control their own marketing destiny rather than being subject to the algorithms and fees of an intermediary.

From First Order to Loyal Regular

Curate aims to do more than just process transactions; it's designed to build relationships. Once a customer is enrolled in a restaurant's loyalty program—a process that takes seconds through the App Clip—the platform's AI marketing engine takes over. The system analyzes real purchase behavior to automate and optimize campaigns across SMS, email, and push notifications.

The AI recommends who to target, what offers to send, and the optimal timing to drive repeat business, effectively turning first-time buyers into regulars. This focus on long-term value is what excites seasoned hospitality executives like Howard Gordon, Curate's Chief Business Officer and a former executive at The Cheesecake Factory.

"If Curate's technology existed when I was at The Cheesecake Factory, it would have fundamentally changed how we engaged guests and operated at scale," Gordon stated. "Today's operators are exhausted by expensive, disconnected tools that don't deliver results. Curate replaces that complexity with a single, easy-to-use platform that drives engagement, loyalty, and profitability."

The company is led by a team that merges deep Silicon Valley expertise with hands-on industry knowledge. CEO Grant Russell is a former engineer from Google's innovation lab, X, while CTO Alex Wang comes from Meta AI. Their technical prowess, combined with Gordon's experience scaling one of the nation's most successful restaurant brands, positions Curate to deliver a solution that is both technologically advanced and grounded in the real-world needs of restaurant operators.