Beli 😋

setting the scene

• your friends are in town, and you want to impress them with the perfect dinner reservation 🧐

• you consult several sources, including:

  • Yelp reviews from self-important strangers

  • bloggers who review the top tourist spots

  • cluttered lists from friends

  • “the best restaurants near me” Google search

• this week’s company helps diners efficiently find the next place to eat by enabling users to discover, save, and review restaurants with friends 🍽

in a sentence

Beli is a social platform that enables diners to organize, discover, and share restaurants

• organize: build lists and maps of places you’ve been and rank restaurants

• discover: bookmark restaurants for later, search by location or cuisines, and receive recommendations based on taste preferences

• share: review your favorite places, see where friends are eating in a feed, and follow other users with similar taste preferences

bulleted version: Beli combines TikTok’s personalized algorithm, Yelp reviews, and Google Maps lists to enable users to find, review, and save restaurants 🤤

the basics

• industry: consumer internet, foodtech, reviews and recs

• headquarters: New York, NY 🗽

• year founded: 2020

• company size: 4 FTEs 💼

• investors: friends and family

• amount raised: not disclosed

• business model: pre-revenue

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due diligence

what we like

• 💨 consumer tailwinds: as 94% of US diners consult reviews before dining and 77% prefer peer reviews, Beli provides a reliable and seamless way to explore restaurants with people they trust

• 🔁 retention strategies: Beli engages and retains users through reservation notifications, a personalized profile with automated restaurant ratings and taste preferences, and competition through user rankings

• 📈 expansion opportunity: as Beli continues to build a loyal customer base in the restaurant industry, the company has the potential to expand to become the trusted social platform for all experiences

potential risks

• 💥 crowded market: several startups have tried to rethink how people discover restaurants, but most lose to well-funded recommendations sites, review platforms, social media giants, and influencers

• 💰 proving the business model: Beli must offer differentiated and valuable premium products to turn users into paying customers

  • plus, with no ads on the platform, Beli loses out on a massive revenue opportunity that many social media companies benefit from

• 👩‍🍳 b2c vs. b2restaurant: by offering a product for the restaurant goer, does the company miss an opportunity for a two-sided platform that rethinks how restaurants engage with reviewers?

founder profiles

• Judith Thelen (CEO; prev. @ McKinsey)

• Eliot Frost (CTO; prev. @ McKinsey)

comps

• Deets

• Mapstr

• Camber

• Yummi

why Beli: with over 5m unique restaurant ratings and 500k+ followers across social channels, we are fully convinced that Beli will disrupt restaurant reviews and recommendations

bulletin board

• 🗓 tomorrow: we’re co-hosting the Tech Breakfast Club for 200+ founders, operators, and investors in NYC

  • it’s not too late to sign up!

• 📰 headlines we’re following: 

  • Cava, the Mediterranean restaurant chain, confidentially filed for an IPO

    • go rank your local Cava on Beli

  • the remainder of Barstool Sports was acquired by Penn Entertainment for $333m

  • check out how Instagram is following Twitter’s pay-to-play verification feature