Embargo raises £2.6m from investors and angels to supercharge its loyalty and CRM platform for hospitality SMEs

UK hospitality tech business Embargo has raised £2.6m to accelerate its growth across Europe and beyond.

The investment round included participation from prominent investors in the UK, the United States, and Europe, including Paul Statham (founder of Condeco), Christo Georgiev (founder of myPOS), the food industry-focused fund Hampton Finance (created by the Chantler family, founders of Meadow Foods), Stephen Zinser, Carl Christian Reiner, as well as Oh Polly and its founder Mike Branney.

Founded by Frederick Szydlowski and Tsewang Wangkang, Embargo is the UK’s leading CRM, loyalty and ordering platform, helping coffee shops, restaurants and bakeries boost customer retention and digital sales across every revenue channel (in-store, click & collect, and delivery). It is currently used by nearly 3,000 venues with a strong footprint in the UK, Poland and Western Europe, and has processed more than 13 million transactions and digital stamps.

Embargo has seen rapid growth in recent years, with revenue almost tripling since mid-2023 despite its team remaining the same size. Their total app transactions and digital stamps nearly doubled in the last 12 months.

As global hospitality brands invest heavily in loyalty solutions to drive sales and retention – including the likes of McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, and Joe & The Juice – demand is rising for accessible, effective technology for independent operators and smaller chains. Embargo is addressing this need, serving the sector’s SMEs (which account for approximately 75% of all hospitality businesses) with a user-friendly, data-driven platform.

The funding will support further development of Embargo’s proprietary AI and machine learning engine, which powers personalised marketing and retention strategies. It will also enable a significantly increased spend on B2B sales and marketing compared to previous years, focused primarily on existing markets before then assessing opportunities to expand into new markets from next year – this follows recent global partnership agreements with leading US-based payment and POS providers, including Square and Lightspeed.

Embargo currently actively operates in two countries, with presence in over ten. and the company plans to expand its international presence in the coming 24 months.

Our mission is to level the playing field for hospitality SMEs keen to grow their revenues and scale – we do that by giving them access to the kind of tools typically reserved for global enterprises. This investment is not just a vote of confidence in our product and growth to date, but also in the scale of the opportunity ahead. With strong foundations, a growing international footprint, and a clear product roadmap, we’re perfectly positioned to become the go-to platform for hospitality businesses worldwide.

Frederick Szydlowski, Co-founder

We know how hard it is for SMEs to capture and analyse customer data effectively. Embargo’s plug-and-play CRM platform gives SMEs sophisticated but easy to use tools, which have proven to drive repeat revenue for thousands of merchants. Embargo is closing a critical information gap in the food-and-hospitality sector, and we are excited to be part of its journey.

Oliver Chantler, Director at Hampton Finance

For the first time, we have the budget to fully leverage our product-market fit and significantly accelerate sales and marketing. We aim to more than double our growth year-over-year while maintaining a healthy business model and avoiding short-term artificial spikes that don’t deliver long-term value. It’s all about where we will be in three, five, ten years – not next quarter. If you optimise towards short-term growth at any cost, you start focusing on vanity metrics.

Tsewang Wangkang, Co-founder

Having built and exited a $100m+ ARR software platform myself, I look for founders who have what it takes to scale a startup. Successful startups don’t always need groundbreaking technologies – much more often, they are best-in-class solutions with outstanding execution. Embargo is solving a growing need for SMEs, which require support more than ever. What the team have achieved so far gives them a tremendous base for scaling globally.

Paul Statham, Founder of Condeco

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