Finnish startup Cluby, whose platform enables every restaurant to connect with their customers digitally, has raised €2.9M seed round from Vendep Capital, which invested in HappySignals and Happeo. The round also saw participation from Cluby’s co-founder and investor Pekka Koskinen, and food delivery unicorn Wolt co-founder Elias Aalto. With this, the total funding raised by the startup accounts for €3.2 million.
The company will use the money to expand across Europe, bringing its expertise and tools to a broader audience. In 2024, the company will scale up in Europe to become the category leader in every market the company operates in.
“We wanted to invest in Cluby particularly because of its amazing and experienced founding team with multiple serial entrepreneurs, including Pekka Koskinen, who led our portfolio company Leadfeeder to a successful exit with Dealfront. The second main reason is the market opportunity – there is a huge need in the restaurant industry for utilising customer data. Currently, there are no effective tools available for restaurants. Overall, we see that the restaurant industry is becoming more digital and increasingly utilising technology, so we see an excellent opportunity here. Additionally, all of Cluby’s customers we talked with praised the Cluby platform and stated they had gained significant benefits from using it,” stated Juha-Pekka Arala, General Partner at Vendep Capital.
What challenge does it address?
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digitalisation in the restaurant industry, leading to the widespread adoption of digital tools like table booking systems, food delivery apps, and event ticket platforms.
Many large chains, like McDonald’s or Starbucks, have also created their own apps to connect with customers. However, this approach is not cost-effective for smaller restaurants, bars, cafes, or nightclubs, which have essentially been limited to social media marketing, newsletters, or physical loyalty cards.
This is where Cluby comes into the picture. It offers an easy-to-use and affordable platform that enables restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, and other businesses to connect with their customers digitally.
What does Cluby do?
Cluby was founded in 2018 in Finland by Kalle Ek, Joel Leino, and Pekka Koskinen (the founder of Leadfeeder. The startup provides an easy-to-use and affordable platform on which restaurants and other venues can connect with customers, manage their customer registers, sell digital products like monthly subscriptions, tickets, and VIP passes, offer member benefits, develop personalised loyalty programs, and create marketing campaigns to encourage repeat business.
All these tasks are done in a centralised, easy-to-use app, which is also useful for restaurant customers, as they only have to download one app to connect with all their favourite bars, cafes, restaurants, and nightclubs.
As per the company, its digital customer loyalty has significantly impacted Finland’s restaurant market. In 2023, the company witnessed a yearly growth rate of over 5x, and there are already over 500 restaurants in Cluby and over 100,000 users who have downloaded the app.
“We saw the market need for Cluby already 5 years ago, and we launched the first prototype in the summer of 2019. But then COVID hit the restaurant industry, and therefore us, really hard. For 3 years, we kept our team small and improved our product in a close relationship with hand-selected restaurants. In the beginning of 2023, we decided it was time to start scaling, and since then we’ve grown both our restaurant and our user base month-to-month. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved with our team so far, and we’re excited to finally expand Cluby to other countries in Europe,” added Kalle Ek, co-founder and CEO at Cluby.
What do we think about Cluby?
The Finnish startup transforming the restaurant industry’s digital landscape offers an affordable, user-friendly platform for customer engagement and loyalty, and addresses a significant gap for smaller establishments. With proven success in Finland and ambitious European expansion plans, Cluby is poised to become a category leader, driving digital connectivity and customer retention in hospitality.
