Tabit Technologies Inc. has helped over 1,000 restaurants around the world survive the pandemic by integrating mobile solutions and services.
Now its mission is shifting to help them grow as more markets in the U.S. and Israel open up amid successful vaccination roll-out campaigns.
The company, which is based in Israel, and has its U.S. beachhead in Miami, is zeroing in on the California market as it continues an aggressive expansion plan stateside.
“California is a great focal point for us,” says cofounder and President Nadav Solomon.
Tabit has been lining up distribution deals statewide with restaurant POS technology resellers. Recent reseller partnerships in the Golden State include POS Technical Services Inc. in Anaheim; Ontario-based West Coast POS; Long Beach Cash Register Co.; and Solutions NCR, a Sacramento-based company that recently installed Tabit systems at Bounty Hunter Wine Bar & Smokin’ BBQ in downtown Napa, the heart of wine country in the state, and arguably the country.
“Tabit is the dinosaur killer, the rest of the POS solutions are going extinct,” says Barry Hogg, Operations Manager of West Coast POS.
The strategic acquisition of Israeli-based Shift Organizer last year provided the tech foundation to create a compliance tool specifically for California customers that allows them to track and record employee time and attendance, scheduling and tips.
“If you want to provide owners and managers with a 360 view of their business, you need to tap into and touch the labor part,” Solomon says. “You want the owner to manage all of this seamlessly in one place.”
Features … Made to Order
Tabit’s technology helps restaurant operators manage point of sale, orders, finances, and takeout and delivery services, among other areas. The company offers 15 products for the hospitality industry, tailored to small proprietorships to full-service national chains.
“Covid changed the restaurant industry forever. Tabit’s restaurant operating system is helping Bounty Hunter’s two fine-dining restaurants in the Napa Valley and Walnut Creek recover by enabling mobile tableside ordering and payments, by facilitating online ordering for curbside, and online reservations. We switched from our previous legacy POS solution because this not only makes the customer experience better, it enables faster service, fewer mistakes and empowers our customers to drive their own dining experience. — Marc Gigantelli of Bounty Hunter Wine
“Our customers expect a unique, personal experience, and Tabit makes that happen. From a processing standpoint, Tabit allows us far more flexibility than its competitors, which allows us the luxury of having processors compete for our business, saving us money. We’re truly elated to be working with the Tabit to elevate our customer experience.”
Among them:
• TabitWheels, an intuitive delivery app that allows restaurants to better control operational margins by managing their own deliveries, thereby avoiding costly third-party delivery platforms that can cost restaurants upwards of 30% of their online ordering and delivery margins.
• TabitOrder, designed to minimize ordering inaccuracies and enhance customer experience by providing accurate arrival estimates and real-time kitchen progress.
• TabitGuest, which helps maximize restaurant occupancy through online reservations and a waitlist management system, eliminating the traditional charge of $1 per customer that traditional systems charge.
“Many fast casual operations and full-service restaurants are looking for these features,” says Solomon, a former lieutenant commander in the Israeli Navy and BioTech entrepreneur who founded and led NextFerm (TASE:NXFR), who established Tabit in 2013 with Barry Shaked, the longtime chairman and chief executive of Israeli-based retail software maker Retalix, which was acquired in 2012 for $800 million by NCR Corp. (NYSE: NCR) in Atlanta.
“We invested significant funds and resources to run fast and create these delivery, curbside pickup, mobile payment, and feedback solutions,” Solomon adds.
Those investments are paying off. The company counts some 1,300 restaurants, and another 200 hotels and other businesses as clients, a diverse cohort that includes KFC’s operations in Israeli, where Tabit runs its kitchen display systems, point-of-sales, self-ordering kiosks and mobile ordering apps; to the Villa Casa Casuarina, the former site of the Versace Mansion in Miami Beach.
Tabit helped its luxury restaurant transition to a new POS system, which helped boost server tips as quality of service improved.
“In a fine dining full-service restaurant like ours, the switch has to be executed with extreme attention to detail,” and Tabit’s Partner Success Management team took care of it all,” says Daniel Tamir, Director of Finance of Gianni’s at the Former Versace Mansion, Victor Hotels Management.
Tabit is an Oracle-certified partner for hotel technology integration, a designation that has led to new opportunities in the U.S., which now accounts for nearly as much business as Israel, where it touches about 45% of that country’s food and beverage revenue in one way or another.
“We just want to provide our customers with the best tech tools out there,” Solomon says. “Sometimes they can save thousands of dollars a month per restaurant because they work with our system.”
Tabit doesn’t monetize payment processing or credit card swipes. It instead charges customers a monthly Software-as-a-Service fee, the ideal business model for most software makers today.
tabitSetting a New Bar
Tabit has raised $65 million in venture capital funding since its inception. Last year it raised $35 million in a Series B round from backers that included Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services, Pitango Venture Capital and Vertex Ventures Israel, all based in Tel Aviv.
The company earmarked those funds for product development and U.S. expansion, boosting its network of resellers to about 40 and its employment count to over 150, a rare growth spurt amid the pandemic. Tabit added key personnel from Hilton and Marriott to better understand the hotel market.
Solomon projects another 50 or so hires this year to meet demand and position the company for another funding round next year.
“It’s probably going to be much bigger than the previous one,” Solomon suggests. “We have enough opportunity to get the funds and the money we need to run faster. More importantly, to help our valued customers.”
Copyright © 2021 California Business Journal. All Rights Reserved.
This article was edited and published by Rick Weinberg, California Business Journal’s Founder, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. Click here for Rick Weinberg’s biography.
For testimonials on the impact of California Business Journal articles, click here.
