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Virtual Dining Concepts’ Linked Eats acquires Sauce TechnologiesVirtual Dining Concepts’ Linked Eats acquires Sauce Technologies

Linked Eats acquired the AI-powered dynamic pricing solution just one week after the former company was launched by VDC

Joanna Fantozzi, Senior Editor

August 6, 2024

2 Min Read
Linked-Eats-Sauce
This is Linked Eats' first acquisition.Linked-Eats

Joanna Fantozzi

Just one week after Virtual Dining Concepts announced its first foray into the restaurant software sphere with the launch of Linked Eats, Linked Eats has made its first acquisition. The new software arm of VDC has acquired Sauce Technologies: an AI-powered digital ordering solution that had just raised more than $3.6 million in its latest investment round.

Sauce Technologies is financially backed by founders of Sweetgreen, SBE, Uber, and Airbnb; and the company mainly uses data-backed insights to offer pricing strategies. Linked Eats will work with Sauce Technologies to add new digital marketing and demand forecasting features to its software capabilities, and Sauce Technologies will be made available to Virtual Dining Concepts’ 4,000 digital restaurants across 30 virtual brands.

"We are thrilled to welcome the entire Sauce team to Linked Eats," Robbie Earl, chairman of Linked Eats, said in a statement. "With third-party delivery reaching critical scale, we are seeing the landscape shift to a more profit-driven marketplace, and restaurants need new tools to thrive in this challenging and competitive environment. This acquisition will add further AI-expertise to our team and features and further our leadership in developing and providing these tools.”

Related:Why Virtual Dining Concepts and Blackbird Labs have entered the food tech solutions space for the first time

Sauce’s core product offering can adjust operator prices item-by-item, based on demand and dining occasions, as well as throttle online orders by adding premium pricing during busy times in a restaurant.

Sauce Technologies’ delivery-centric dynamic pricing and revenue management tools fit in with Linked Eats’ substantial launch portfolio of digital features, which includes another dynamic pricing tool for real-time price monitoring, an AI-driven marketing tool, SEO optimization, automated uptime, and communications for operator performance.

“We at Sauce are excited to join the Linked Eats team and scale the digital growth tools that we’ve built for restaurants,” Colin Webb, Sauce Technologies’ CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “Combining Linked Eats’ operator-first approach and current platform with Sauce’s marketing automation software creates a powerful synergy to supercharge what it means to be successful for today and tomorrow’s restaurateurs.”

Contact Joanna at [email protected]

 

 

Contact Joanna at [email protected]

About the Author

Joanna Fantozzi

Senior Editor

Joanna Fantozzi is a Senior Editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality. She has more than seven years of experience writing about the restaurant and hospitality industry. Her editorial coverage ranges from profiles of independent restaurants around the country to breaking news and insights into some of the biggest brands in food and beverage, including Starbucks, Domino’s, and Papa John’s.  

Joanna holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature and creative writing from The College of New Jersey and a master’s degree in arts and culture journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Prior to joining Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group in 2018, she was a freelance food, culture, and lifestyle writer, and has previously held editorial positions at Insider (formerly known as Business Insider) and The Daily Meal. Joanna’s work can also be found in The New York Times, Forbes, Vice, The New York Daily News, and Parents Magazine. 

Her areas of expertise include restaurant industry news, restaurant operator solutions and innovations, and political/cultural issues.

Joanna Fantozzi has been a moderator and event facilitator at both Informa’s MUFSO and Restaurants Rise industry events. 

Joanna Fantozzi’s experience:

Senior Editor, Informa Restaurant & Food Group (August 2021-present)

Associate Editor, Informa Restaurant & Food Group (July 2019-August 2021)

Assistant Editor, Informa Restaurant & Food Group (Oct. 2018-July 2019)

Freelance Food & Lifestyle Reporter (Feb. 2018-Oct. 2018)

Food & Lifestyle Reporter, Insider (June 2017-Feb. 2018)

News Editor, The Daily Meal (Jan. 2014- June 2017)

Staff Reporter, Straus News (Jan. 2013-Dec. 2013)

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