01 Investor deck · Europe · 2026

Ember — the operating
system for European restaurants

Two restaurateurs, a product studio, and one platform that runs the whole restaurant — and you just talk to it. The product is already built and operated for us; we bring it to Europe under the Ember brand. We're raising €500k–€1M on a SAFE for marketing and growth.

Built
product live, not a slide-deck idea
Operated
built & run by a studio — not on our payroll
Europe
large, fragmented, legacy-bound market
€0.5–1M
on a SAFE · marketing & growth
Our storyOpportunityWhat Ember isWhy nowThe model ProofHow we earnTeamGo-to-market Use of fundsThe askExpansionRisksClose
02 Our story

How Ember came together

Ember is what happens when restaurant people get a technology they could never have built themselves — and the chance to own it.

01 · The operators

Restaurateurs, not techies

Antonio and Dani build and run restaurants. They know exactly what's broken in restaurant software — because they live it every service, in their own venues.

02 · The technology

A machine that builds software

A product studio built something rare: a “constructor” that builds and runs software at a fraction of the usual cost and speed — and a complete restaurant platform already running on top of it.

03 · The deal

Technology + a chance

The studio hands Ember the technology and the European opportunity, and takes a minority stake. The founders bring restaurant expertise and sales — and shape the product themselves by chatting with agents; the studio runs those agents and guarantees quality. Ember owns its brand, customers and revenue.

The bet in one line: world-class technology in the hands of real restaurant operators. The studio makes the product unbeatable; the founders make it sell.

03 The opportunity

Europe's restaurants run on a patchwork of old tools — and pay a lot for it

Hundreds of thousands of restaurants, no single modern winner for the small and mid-sized — just legacy tills and a stack of disconnected apps.

  • Fragmented by country. Every market has its own incumbents and rules; nobody owns the relationship. That's the perfect opening.
  • They overpay — a lot. In Italy, restaurants pay €400/month for a reservations tool alone. That's the incumbent price Ember undercuts with a fraction of it.
  • Legacy and slow. Old POS systems, expensive customisations, support that takes days. The same pain everywhere.
1.58M
food & beverage businesses in the EU (2024)
~330k
foodservice businesses in Italy — the beachhead
€400 / mo
what an Italian restaurant pays for reservations alone
€7–20B/yr
TAM — 1–3% take on EU foodservice turnover (~€670B)
€1–2B/yr
SAM — Italy + first European capitals
€50–90M ARR
SOM — ~10k locations, ~5-yr target

Revenue model is a take on each restaurant's turnover (payments + virtual staff + purchasing + subscription), ~1–3% of ~€420k average venue GMV. Comps: Toast ~$14B, SumUp ~€8.5B. Full sourced sizing in the EU market research report.

04 What Ember is

One system instead of ten — and you just talk to it

Ember replaces the tangle of till, kitchen screen, stock sheet, delivery apps and loyalty cards with a single platform. Half of it is a chat assistant: ask for a report, set up a dish, change a price — no hunting through menus.

POS / tillWaiter appKitchen screenStock & purchasing Recipes & food costDelivery & couriersReservationsLoyalty Discounts & promosReviewsLive P&LSelf-order kiosk Multi-site controlFranchiseAI assistant

One catalogue, every screen

Till, kiosk, kitchen, delivery — all from one place. Legacy systems make you set the menu up twice.

Just ask

The assistant does the work for the owner and staff — the thing nobody else in the market offers.

Localised for Europe

Language, taxes, fiscal rules and local payment habits handled per country by the studio.

05 Why now

AI changed who can win — speed and price legacy vendors can't match

Software is cheap now
AI collapsed the cost of building and changing software. It stopped being the moat — speed, price and service became the moat instead.

That's why Ember can do three things European incumbents can't:

A new feature in a day

Restaurant asks → it's in the product tomorrow. Legacy quotes months and thousands of euros.

A fix the same day

Reported → fixed → shipped in hours, not in the next quarterly release.

Support 24/7 that acts

The assistant answers from live data and changes settings itself — not a call-centre queue.

The real moat is a quality-control line (tests, reviewing agents) that keeps that speed safe — an incumbent can't copy it without rebuilding itself.

06 The model · how it actually works

Ember shapes the product itself — by chatting with agents. The studio guarantees it works.

This is the part that's different. The Ember team doesn't file tickets and wait for a vendor. They change the product directly — by talking to AI agents: “add this”, “change that”, “build me a report like this”. The studio is what makes that safe and reliable.

1 · The team asks

Antonio, Dani and their staff tell the agents what they want — in plain language, in chat. No engineers, no tickets, no waiting.

2 · The agents build it

The studio's machine runs the agents that make the change — a new feature, a fix, a report — in hours, not quarters.

3 · The studio guarantees it

The studio powers those agents, validates every result and guarantees quality — tests and reviewing agents — before anything goes live.

Why this matters to an investor: Ember has direct, self-serve control over its own product — no engineering team to hire, no vendor queue to wait in — while the studio guarantees quality behind the scenes. The product is built and proven, so your money buys demand and market share, not R&D.

07 Proof the engine is real

Already shipped, already migrating real restaurants

29
modules already in production — a restaurant runs end-to-end, not a demo
13
restaurants migrated in a live test: 3,198 products, 1,270 recipes, 985 suppliers, 3,804 invoices
“log in”
switching is seamless — enter credentials from the old system and the data moves over

The studio has a track record

It already operates the product in its first market with self-healing infrastructure and 24/7 support. Ember inherits a mature engine, not a prototype.

Europe is the localisation, not the rebuild

The hard part — the platform — exists. Adapting language, tax and fiscal rules per country is well-trodden work the studio already does.

Figures from the studio's first deployment; a live Ember demo is available on request.

08 How Ember earns

We take 1–3% of each restaurant's turnover

A low subscription wins the location. The real model is a take on the restaurant's flow — across payments, virtual staff and purchasing. On an average venue (~€420k/yr turnover) that's €4–13k per location per year, far above any software fee.

Payments

A share of every payment taken through the platform. The rail is built & run by the studio — licences and risk off Ember's books.

Virtual staff

AI replaces back-office roles (bookkeeping, marketing, call-centre). We charge ~20% of the salary we replace — several roles already beat any subscription.

Purchasing

Margin on procurement — restaurants buy supplies through the platform at better terms; we keep a slice of the flow.

Land low, then take the flow

Subscription is deliberately a fraction of incumbents — the weapon to win locations fast. Once we run the restaurant, payments + staff + purchasing turn into a 1–3% take of turnover, recurring and rising with every location.

The studio operates it all

Payments, virtual staff and purchasing are run by the studio — Ember owns the customer and books the revenue, with the product cost off its books. Margins stay high.

09 Team

Built by people who run restaurants — backed by the studio engine

AF

Antonio Freza

Co-founder · Restaurant & brand

Italian chef-restaurateur, born in Puglia. Runs Sea and Signora in Milan and is opening 10 more across European capitals. Award-winning brand-chef behind a multi-concept restaurant group. The founder is the customer — real industry credibility, taste and network.

D

Dani bio to confirm

Co-founder · Entrepreneur & sales

Entrepreneur and restaurateur driving demand, sales and on-the-ground operations across target markets. [Add 2–3 verified bullets: background, network, prior ventures.]

S

The Studio

The constructor · technical partner

Built the constructor and the product on it. The Ember team changes the product directly by chatting with agents; the studio runs those agents, validates every result and guarantees quality — features daily, fixes same-day, support automatic — and operates the payment rail. A separate company and a ~20% minority co-owner of Ember — aligned by ownership. Proven: 29 modules in production, restaurants migrated, 24/7 ops.

The founders front the company and own the European business; the studio supplies and operates the product as a startup-studio partner.

10 Go-to-market

Beachhead first, then country by country

Beachheadmonths 0–6
Win Italy first — starting with our own tables. Antonio's Milan venues (Sea, Signora) are the first live references, and his 10 planned openings across European capitals are built-in launch sites. Land a first cohort with seamless migration; prove conversion and retention before spreading.
Scale the motion6–12
Repeatable sales + marketing. Demand generation, a small sales team, local partners and resellers, referrals from happy operators. This is where the raised money goes to work.
Next markets12–24
Replicate per country. The studio localises (language, tax, fiscal, payments); Ember repeats the playbook in the next European capital. Payments-share revenue compounds as the base grows.

The marketing equation: free, seamless migration removes the reason not to switch → low cost to win a restaurant → recurring subscription + payments share for years. Marketing spend turns into a growing recurring base.

11 Use of funds

Every euro goes to demand and growth — not to building software

The product is built and operated by the studio, and the studio carries the product and payments cost. So the round funds exactly one thing: winning restaurants across Europe.

Demand generation

Marketing, content, brand, events — fill the pipeline with restaurants.

Sales team

Local sellers and onboarding to convert and retain.

Market launches

Enter new capitals: partners, references, local presence.

Founders & ops

A lean team to run the European business.

Not funded by this round: product development and the payment rail — both built and operated by the studio. That's what makes this a pure growth investment.

12 The ask

Invest in growth of a product that's already built and proven

You're not betting on whether the product gets built. It exists, it works, and a proven studio runs it. You're funding how fast Ember takes Europe.

  • What you get: a stake (via SAFE) in a fast-growing European restaurant platform with two recurring revenue lines (subscription + payments share).
  • De-risked: product built, migration proven, costs carried by the studio.
  • Pure growth use: your money buys customers and market share, not engineering.

The round

Raising €500k–€1M on a SAFE. No priced valuation today — it's set at the next priced round (cap & discount to be agreed).

Structure: founders hold the majority, the studio a ~20% minority stake (aligned by ownership); this round is for new investors.

Capital goes to marketing, sales and market entry across Europe.

Ember · Europe · 2026 · brand and product tailored under the Ember name, operated by the studio.

13 The vision

From one city to the European restaurant platform

Phase 1 — Win Milan & Italy

0–12 mo

Founders' own venues as flagships, a first cohort, proven conversion and retention, both revenue lines live.

Phase 2 — European capitals

12–24 mo

Follow the 10 planned openings and beyond; studio localises each market. Payments share compounds with the base.

Phase 3 — The default

24 mo+

Ember becomes the obvious choice for European restaurants — one platform, AI-run, always improving.

Speed advantage is structural: the studio ships faster and cheaper than any legacy vendor, so the product keeps pulling ahead while Ember sells.

14 Risks & mitigations

What could go wrong — and how it's handled

Per-country fiscal & localisation

Every market has its own tax and fiscal rules. Mitigation: this is the studio's job, and it already does localisation; Ember focuses on selling, not compliance engineering.

Competition (Lightspeed, SumUp, Toast, local)

Bigger names exist. Mitigation: Ember wins on a complete AI-run platform at a fraction of their price, feature-a-day speed, and seamless migration — not on outspending them.

Dependence on the studio

The engine is external. Mitigation: Ember owns its copy, brand and customers and steers the product itself by chatting with agents — not waiting on a vendor. The studio guarantees quality and is a ~20% co-owner, so interests pull the same way.

Execution / market entry

Selling in new countries is hard. Mitigation: founders start in their own city with their own venues, prove the motion, then replicate — and that's exactly what the round funds.

15 In short

Why Ember

  • The story: restaurateurs given a technology they couldn't have built — and the chance to own it in Europe.
  • The product: a complete, AI-run restaurant platform — already built, proven, and operated by a studio.
  • The model: studio builds and runs it (support automatic); Ember sells it and owns the brand, customers and revenue.
  • The money: a 1–3% take of each restaurant's turnover (payments + virtual staff + purchasing + subscription), growing with every location — and your investment funds growth, not R&D.

The ask

Raising €500k–€1M on a SAFE for marketing and growth across Europe — valuation at the next priced round. Let's talk.

Ember · Europe · 2026