Across the American Inno network of publications that covers 45 cities in the U.S., the Inno Fire Awards highlight innovative organizations and people who have had a year worth celebrating. Honorees could be startups, accelerators, or nonprofits buoying startups. They could be researchers or institutional leaders who rally innovators and give them the tools they need to succeed.
Memphis’ innovation ecosystem is growing swiftly, and the city isn’t short on high-caliber startups and individuals worthy of this award. There are many organizations and people in the community that could be considered “on fire.” But after careful consideration, MBJ and Memphis Inno have chosen five to highlight.
Below is a profile of one of the 2022 Inno Fire Award honorees — Bite Ninja — and a Q&A with its co-founder Will Clem.
Will Clem
Co-founder of Bite Ninja
If you were to just look at Will Clem’s degrees, you might think the startup he co-founded, Bite Ninja, was developing a medical device. After all, he has a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
But Bite Ninja isn’t looking to heal physical wounds. Instead, it’s looking to help you get your food faster — and make the restaurant industry significantly more efficient. The company provides cloud labor to restaurants, and it’s quickly gained momentum.
Restaurants can use Bite Ninja’s platform to outsource drive-thru and counter shifts to the startup’s network of trained 1099 contractors, who take orders from their homes. Those workers can be in the same city or live on the other side of the country. They can work a variety of shift lengths, whether it’s one or two hours during the busiest periods, or a longer, more sustained time.
If a customer pulls up to a restaurant’s drive-thru, they’ll see the Bite Ninja contractor’s face on the menu screen and hear their voice come through the speaker. If they order at the counter, they’ll see their face on a screen, where the cashier would usually stand.
And with Bite Ninja contractors taking orders, restaurants can divert staff members to other duties.
Already, Bite Ninja has scored over $15.4 million in seed funding. It’s in stores from coast to coast, and it’s spreading rapidly. Five top-20 quick-service restaurant chains have pilots with it, and more are poised to do so soon.
MBJ caught up with Clem about the past year for Bite Ninja and the years to come. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and space.
MBJ: What have been the biggest highlights of 2022 for Bite Ninja?
Will Clem: Over this past year, we have been astounded at the overwhelming demand and outreach from our restaurant customers who have felt the impact of the industry-wide labor shortage. It has been very rewarding to see how our technology has helped not only our customers navigate through this crisis but also has given our Ninjas new life by granting them access to these new remote opportunities. Our recent funding was also huge. We have seen immense growth within our company and are also very proud of our new HQ in Memphis!
What big wins has Bite Ninja had in research funding this year? We successfully raised $11.3 million in our latest funding round earlier this year, bringing our total raised amount to date to $15.4 million. This funding allowed us to further develop our platform and deploy additional resources to support our growing sales and marketing efforts. Our funding has helped us expand as a company and meet customer’s growing demands when it comes to staffing. We expect to conduct another funding round toward the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 to further amplify these efforts! Big things ahead.
Have you made any new hires in the past year, and what are your hiring plans in 2023? We have been fortunate to hire a talented and exceptional software team this past year that has helped build out and modify our platform that can scale with our enterprise customers. Their integration into our company has been a significant factor in our success in 2022, and we hope to continue to hire in Q1 of 2023 to further solidify this growth.
What’s the most fun you had with your colleagues in 2022? We hosted a Super Bowl party at our HQ here in Memphis where everyone was able to bring their families to enjoy a full spread of tailgate food and watch the big game. We rented out a few huge bounce houses, and I can confirm it was not just the kids who enjoyed them. It ended up being cheaper to buy a bounce house than to rent, so I’m sure we will pull that out in the future!
A few months ago, my co-founder, Orin, and I traveled to San Francisco for a few investor meetings, where we discovered our love for transportation by scooter. We rented two and just drove around the entire city in them — we didn’t call Ubers the entirety of our trip!
You’ve been selected for this honor because your organization has been, in a sense, “on fire.” What’s been the fuel that’s kept this flame burning? Without a doubt, we would not be where we are today without our team. When working with any startup, there’s a lot of patience involved, and we truly could not ask for a better group of people who value and support the Bite Ninja mission as much as our team does. They consistently go above and beyond without our asking and are dedicated to making Bite Ninja the top remote staffing platform for the industry.
What are your key areas of focus for 2023? One of our main areas of focus coming into 2023 is execution. We are working to onboard five of the top 20 quick-service restaurant chains over the next year, and we want to efficiently work toward building out our standards that will allow us to work with top-tier restaurant customers. We are committed to scaling our product to perform at a rapid yet efficient rate.
What do you think the biggest opportunities and challenges will be next year? Bite Ninja is entirely disrupting the way an industry performs and operates. We have the massive opportunity to help make restaurants more profitable, lighten the workload, and overall simplify management — especially when it comes to quickly staffing a reliable workforce. As we continue to scale, we get to redistribute opportunities to people in places that would not otherwise have access to remote work options. As Bite Ninja grows, we expect to see more competition arise in the space, so we want to capitalize on these opportunities quickly and effectively. We continue to adapt and learn at a quick pace, while striving to be great leaders and stewards of the vertical we’ve carved out.
