A Chicago venture capital fund with an eye toward restaurant industry innovation is continuing to prioritize artificial intelligence in 2025.
The Emerging Fund has invested $750,000 directly into local tech platform F&B Insights. The investment follows a $1.8 million investment Emerging made in May and furthers the firm’s commitment to back “AI forefront companies” in the food and beverage space, Mathew Focht, Emerging’s CEO, told Chicago Inno.
The Chicago-based VC firm isn’t alone in this strategy. AI and machine learning made up more than 46% of all U.S. deal activity in terms of value in 2024 and nearly 29% of total deal volume.
Focht said the firm, which invests in restaurant tech and restaurant and entertainment concepts, wants to find companies that are leveraging AI in new ways.
Taiv, a company Emerging invested in last December, uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to enhance the live television experience in bars and restaurants by detecting when commercials begin and switching to alternative programming.
F&B Insights, a startup headquartered a little closer to home in Chicago, provides insights into how alcohol brands perform inside bars and restaurants, using the emerging technology to gather data. The platform allows suppliers to benchmark brand performance, optimize promotions, and directly link sales with customer behaviors, activations and menu placements.
With this new capital infusion from the Emerging Fund, the Chicago startup plans to accelerate product development, double down on engineering and data science, and continue to scale out automation.
Aashish Dalal, CEO of F&B Insights, said he wants F&B Insights to be the leading data intelligence platform for on-premises dining and drinking at restaurants.
F&B Insights is currently raising additional capital to meet growing demand and now has more than 65 alcohol supplier brands that have purchased the data program and 40 operator brands including the SoHo Houses on board as well.
