Since its fall 2021 launch, Memphis Inno — MBJ’s brand geared toward startups, technology, and innovation — has expanded its coverage of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Memphis Inno's Startups to Watch highlights startups and founders who are breaking technological ground in their respective industries, with new ventures and innovative product offerings. Memphis Inno’s Startups to Watch for 2023 leaned into strengths of the local economy, with ventures selected from the medical device, logistics, and restaurant industries.
Startups to Watch features early stage companies figuring out how to get off the ground, and others that already have significant sources of funding and are looking to scale up. All are uniquely Memphis ventures.
Bite Ninja
Though they can’t say who they are just yet, Will Clem and the Bite Ninja team are doing pilot programs with some of the largest quick-service restaurant chains in the U.S. — ones with thousands of locations.
“Anybody would recognize these names,” said Clem, co-founder of Bite Ninja. “There’s a lot of hardware being installed across the country. … So that when that approval from corporate comes, it’s going to be like you flip a light switch, and boom, it’s going to be a crazy fast growth rate.”
The technology poised to cause this “boom” is the startup’s platform, which provides cloud labor to restaurants.
The idea for the business was sparked in early 2020, when Clem encountered a problem at his Bartlett restaurant, Baby Jack’s BBQ. On a Friday night, the bulk of his cashiers called in, saying they couldn’t make it to work — and he had to close for the evening.
Closing on a Friday night can be costly for a restaurant, and Clem vowed to not let it happen again.
Now, that vow has ultimately helped lead to the Bite Ninja platform, which restaurants can use 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.
So far, Bite Ninja has scored about $15.4 million in seed funding, and it plans to raise more in 2023 — which could be a big year for the startup.
“We’re right at that inflection point,” Clem said. “It’s going to be a really big year.”
