About DishMath

Built for the 600,000 restaurants enterprise software ignores.

Independent restaurants are 70% of the US food-service market — and nearly 0% of the priority list at SAP, Crunchtime, or Toast's enterprise team. We think that's backwards.

Mission

Put a CFO in every independent kitchen.

Great food should not die because the owner can't read a P&L. We make dish-level economics legible, actionable, and cheap.

Our north star

Help 100,000 independent restaurants add 3+ points to net margin within three years of signup.

Our story

Founded by operators who got crushed, and engineers who wouldn't let it happen to their friends.

2017–2022

Elena runs two Italian restaurants.

Net margin slides from 9% to 1%. She learns, painfully, that her signature carbonara is her worst margin dish. One restaurant doesn't survive COVID.

2023

Elena meets Arjun.

Former Plaid engineer, builds a weekend prototype to parse her Sysco PDFs. The first recipe-cost spreadsheet falls out in 30 minutes. "If I had this three years ago…"

2024

We move in with 12 restaurants.

Spend six months shadowing owners at open, close, and inventory. The weekly SMS is born in week five — and becomes the entire product.

2025

Series Seed led by 43North.

With Craft, Basis Set, and a cohort of restaurateur-angels (Andrew Zimmern, Hugh Acheson).

2026

5,000 locations. 48 states.

And counting. Revenue passed $1M ARR in month 18.

Team

Operators, engineers, and finance nerds.

Elena Marín

Co-founder, CEO
Former chef-owner, Roma Trattoria group. 12 years in kitchens.

Arjun Desai

Co-founder, CTO
Previously Plaid, Stripe Atlas. Built the original OCR pipeline.

Mei Chen

Head of Product
Ex-Toast PM. Ran mid-market for four years.

Dwayne Foster

Head of Data
Ex-Opendoor. Built the benchmark engine.

Priya Sharma

Head of Partnerships
Ex-US Foods sales leadership.

Tomás Rey

Head of Customer Success
15 years running hotel F&B. Knows every excuse.

Bea Okonkwo

Head of Engineering
Ex-Ramp. Ships weekly.

Sam Ishikawa

Head of Design
Ex-Square. Designed our SMS voice.

Backed by

Investors who get restaurants.

43NorthCraft VenturesBasis SetBloomberg BetaOperator CollectiveChef Andrew ZimmernChef Hugh Acheson
What we believe

Five operating principles.

1

Text, not dashboards.

If a feature can't fit in a 6-line SMS, we question whether it should exist.

2

Own your data.

Export anything, any time, no retention tricks.

3

Explain the math.

No black box. Every recommendation comes with the numbers.

4

Win only if you win.

Outcome pricing is on the table for every customer.

5

Independents first.

We'll never build a product for 500-unit QSR chains. Not our market.

In the press

What they're saying.

The New York Times

"A finance team in a text message."

Eater

"Possibly the most pragmatic restaurant tech we've tested."

Restaurant Business

"Independents are fighting back — with software."

HQ

Austin, Texas — on purpose.

Near a dense population of independent restaurants, a deep tech-hiring pool, and Southwest direct flights to every major US food city. We fly to see customers once a quarter.

2132 E. 7th St, Suite B

Austin, TX 78702
Open Tuesdays for customer drop-ins — coffee's on us.

Join us.

We're hiring engineers, designers, and restaurant finance analysts.

See open roles