Chowbus

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Aug 5, 2026

Overview

Chowbus is a Chicago-founded restaurant-technology company that began as an Asian-food delivery marketplace and pivoted into a full-stack SaaS/POS platform for culturally rooted independent restaurants. It provides restaurant operating, ordering, payments, marketing, analytics and emerging AI tools, with operations focused on the U.S. restaurant market.

Primary product

Chowbus POS: an all-in-one restaurant operating platform covering POS hardware/software, online and QR/tablet/kiosk ordering, KDS, delivery integrations, payments, loyalty/CRM, reviews, reservations/waitlist, employee and multi-location management, and AI-enabled marketing/operations.

Founded

2016

Headquarters

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Team size

Approximately 100–203; public sources conflict (143 company-profile estimate, 190 PitchBook estimate, and 203 as of June 2026).

Work style

Flexible

Industry

Technology, Information and Internet

Sub-industry

Restaurant technology / POS and restaurant-management SaaS

Offices

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Distributed workforce across the United States, China, Australia, Canada, and Taiwan (public profile signal; specific offices not fully verified)

Business model

B2B SaaS subscriptions for restaurants

POS and restaurant-management software

Hardware and payments/services attached to POS

Integrated ordering, delivery and operational tools

AI-enabled marketing and restaurant business services

Funding

Stage

Late-stage venture / Series E; privately held

Total raised

$209M

Latest round

Series E · Mar 2026

Latest amount

$81M

Series E

Mar 2026 · Prysm Capital and Left Lane Capital

$81M

Series D

Aug 2023

$21M

Debt financing

Dec 2022

Venture round

Aug 2022

$15.2M

Series C

Jul 2022

Series B

Oct 2020

$30M

Series A

Jul 2020 · Altos Ventures and Left Lane Capital

$33M

Pre-seed / seed

Jan 2019 · Greycroft

$4M

People & investors

Leadership

Linxin Wen

Co-Founder & CEO

Suyu Zhang

Co-Founder & CTO

Xiaolei Gu

Senior Vice President of Engineering

Hao Shen

Head of Partnerships

Steven M

Head of Restaurant Technology

Terry Cai

VP of Key Accounts

Joel Stump

VP of Sales Strategy & Operations

Brian Boise

Director of FP&A

Min Ma

Senior Director of Finance

Investors

Altos Ventures

Avidbank / Avidbank Holdings

Celtic House Asia Partners

Hyde Park Venture Partners

Left Lane Capital

Prysm Capital

Work & culture

Public materials emphasize ownership, customer obsession, teamwork, empathy for restaurant operators, multilingual/culturally aware service, and high-touch partnership with independent restaurant owners. Current recruiting signals show both in-person market-development roles and remote customer-success/systems roles, suggesting a flexible but role-dependent model.

Work style

Flexible

Compensation

A current Greenhouse posting lists $130,000–$160,000 for a remote GTM Systems Lead role. Other compensation data was not publicly verified.

Benefits

Medical, dental and vision insurance

401(k)

Employer-paid short-term disability

Employer-paid life insurance

Employer-paid AD&D insurance

Company holidays

Birthday off

Paid parental leave

Flexible PTO

Employee Assistance Program

Product & market

Pricing

Quote-based restaurant SaaS/POS pricing; public materials promote packages and sales contact rather than a standard public price list. Hardware, payments, integrations and add-on services may be separately priced.

Differentiators

—Designed around culturally rooted and Asian restaurants rather than generic restaurant workflows
—Multilingual and culturally aware customer/merchant support
—Unified POS, ordering, KDS, delivery integrations, marketing and back-office tools
—Support for complex concepts such as bubble tea, hotpot, BBQ, AYCE and modifier-heavy menus
—High-touch service for independent and multi-location operators
—Expansion from POS into AI marketing, accounting, supply-chain and other operating services

Technology

Cloud-based POS

AI / AI Digital Ads

Restaurant analytics and reporting

Kitchen Display Systems (KDS)

QR, tablet and kiosk ordering

Online ordering and branded mobile apps

Delivery integrations

Payments

Salesforce

Greenhouse

Databricks / Apache Spark

Snowflake

Azure Data Factory / Azure Databricks

Angular

Spring MVC

SQL

Tableau

Looker

Power BI

Stripe

Customers

More than 10,000 Asian restaurants (current recruiting claim)

Thousands of independent restaurants across the U.S. and Canada

Chubby Cattle / Chubby Group

Jiang Nan

Jongro

Molly Tea

Bakery 1908

Crafty Crab

Wallace Chicken

Sushi Taku

Che Li

Competitors

Toast

Square for Restaurants

Clover

SpotOn

Lightspeed Restaurant

TouchBistro

Olo

DoorDash

Grubhub

Wonder

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

Approximately $50M–$60M based on company-profile/LinkedIn-derived estimates; Chowbus separately reported $120M+ ARR in March 2026, so public estimates are inconsistent and may reflect different revenue definitions or dates.

Signals & risks

Acquisition

Jan 2024

Fantuan acquired Chowbus's food-delivery business line; financial terms were undisclosed. Chowbus retained and refocused on restaurant SaaS and POS. TechCrunch reported that about 20 delivery employees would join Fantuan.

Source

Other

Jan 2024

Chowbus exited the delivery space entirely by 2024 and concentrated on restaurant technology. This is a material strategic pivot, not a reported shutdown of the company.

Source

Latest news

Chowbus Summer Launch: Epic Upgrades to Flagship Products

Chowbus · May 2026

The company presented an AI Digital Worker strategy and product upgrades across its restaurant platform, with the CEO and CTO describing deeper AI integration into restaurant operations.

Chowbus Raises $81M Series E to Expand AI Platform for Restaurants

Chowbus · Mar 2026

Chowbus announced an $81M Series E led by Prysm and Left Lane, reporting $120M ARR and approximately $4B annualized processed volume, and outlined expansion into AI-driven marketing, accounting, supply ordering and insurance.

Chowbus Surpasses $4B in Volume After Bold Pivot from Delivery App to Full-Stack Restaurant Tech Company

PR Newswire / Chowbus · Sep 2025

Chowbus reported $120M+ ARR and $4B+ processed volume after pivoting from delivery to restaurant technology; cited Jiang Nan and Chubby Group as early adopters.

Chowbus: Interview With CEO Linxin Wen About The Restaurant Streamlining Company

Pulse 2.0 · Aug 2025

Linxin Wen discussed Chowbus's evolution from delivery app to POS and restaurant operating platform, products, culturally rooted customers, and plans to reach 50,000 restaurants by 2028.

Fantuan acquires Chowbus' food delivery business

TechCrunch · Jan 2024

Fantuan acquired Chowbus's delivery business; terms were undisclosed, and Chowbus shifted focus to restaurant-management software and POS.

Jobs and careers at Chowbus

79 jobs at Chowbus

Sales Manager_Arlington, TX

On-site

Sales-Sales-POS

Arlington, Texas, United States

4d ago

On-site

Full-time