This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on October 20, 2022.
FoodBud’s October 20, 2022 digest tracked chain-store expansion, franchise SaaS funding, restaurant-tech investment, executive changes, loyalty partnerships, and IPO preparation signals.
Domino’s Pizza reported third-quarter revenue of $1.07 billion, up 7% year over year. Supply-chain revenue was the main contributor, reaching $650 million for the quarter and accounting for 60% of total revenue. Net profit was $100 million, down 16.5% year over year.
In the U.S., same-store sales at company-operated stores fell 1.9%, partly because labor shortages affected operating hours and staffing. International same-store sales declined 1.8% year over year.
During the quarter, Domino’s net new store openings totaled 225: 24 in the U.S. and 201 internationally. Year-to-date new openings had reached 671 stores.
As of September 11, 2022, Domino’s had 19,519 stores globally. The U.S. store base was 6,643, including 402 company-operated stores and 6,241 franchised stores. International markets accounted for 12,876 stores.
In the first quarter of 2022, Domino’s acquired 23 U.S. franchised stores from a franchisee for $6.8 million.
According to 36Kr, franchise-collaboration SaaS provider Xiangkaidian recently completed a Pre-A round of tens of millions of yuan. The round was led by SIG Asia, with existing investor Shunwei Capital participating. Xiangkaidian had previously raised tens of millions of yuan in 2021 from Shunwei Capital, Yingdong Capital (盈动资本), and Challenger Venture.
The new funding was intended for product iteration, service-team development, and new business expansion.
Xiangkaidian began as a direct-chat recruitment and franchise-matching platform for brands and franchisees. In 2020, it officially launched its SaaS product, covering six modules: new-store preparation, procurement and ordering, operations supervision, marketing campaigns, training, and customer-service tickets. The product is designed to reduce information gaps between brand owners and franchisees.
The SaaS service was commercialized in 2021. At the time of the article, Xiangkaidian had served more than 200 chain brands and supported more than 30,000 live stores. Its representative foodservice clients included Re Lu Shi Guang, Zigu Road Rice Noodles, Shaye Light Food, and Coolstar. The product also served franchise brands in retail, lifestyle services, leisure, and entertainment.
Xiangkaidian mainly charged brand owners SaaS license fees based on store count. As of October 2022, foodservice clients accounted for about 50%-60% of its customer base; retail brands accounted for about 20%; lifestyle services such as pets, dry cleaning, and wedding photography accounted for around 10%; and leisure and entertainment brands such as internet cafes and murder-mystery games accounted for around 10%.
According to TechCrunch, Singapore-based restaurant delivery-operations SaaS company Klikit announced a $2 million seed round co-led by Global Founders Capital and Wavemaker Partners. Participants included Gentree Fund, AfterWork Ventures, Reshape Ventures, Nordstar, Pentas Ventures, Moving Capital, Gojek co-founder Kevin Aluwi, NasDaily’s Nuseir Yassin, YouTuber Lazar Beam, and Radish Fiction founder Seung-yoon Lee. Other strategic angel investors included executives from Gojek, YouTube, and Flash Coffee.
Since launching in July 2022, Klikit’s “Klikit Cloud” had processed more than $2.8 million worth of orders for 150 brands across the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.
Its customers included Bistro Group, the Philippine franchisee of TGI Fridays, Hard Rock Cafe, Buffalo Wild Wings, Flash Coffee, ghost-kitchen startup MadEats, and Just Kitchen.
Klikit was founded in 2021 by Christopher Withers. Withers had served as vice president of marketplaces at GoJek, chief strategy officer at Bangladesh ride-hailing platform Pathao, and worked on UberEats market launches across Asia-Pacific. During the pandemic, he also operated a ghost kitchen in Australia.
Citing The Wall Street Journal, the article reported that KFC’s chief operating officer, chief financial officer, and national market operations director had informed parent company Yum! Brands that they would retire by the end of November 2022.
KFC COO Monica Rothgery had worked at the company for 30 years. CFO Trip Vornholt had worked there for 25 years and, according to The Wall Street Journal, played an important role in adjustments to KFC’s U.S. business. Operations director Jeff Griffin had worked at KFC for 34 years. After his retirement, KFC planned to split the role across two executives because one person did not have equivalent experience to Griffin.
KFC’s business had shown some pressure that year, and the executive departures could further affect performance. KFC’s U.S. system sales fell 6% in the second quarter.
Starbucks U.S. and Delta Air Lines partnered to let members link both loyalty programs and earn rewards across the two brands. Starbucks had 27 million U.S. members, while Delta had about 100 million users globally.
From the launch, users could link their memberships and earn Delta miles when spending at Starbucks in the U.S., with reciprocal reward accumulation also available.
Expanding Starbucks’ loyalty program was described as an important brand objective. The program helps collect customer data and consumption-behavior insights, supports member-targeted promotions, and generally correlates with higher member spending. Starbucks believed this type of brand partnership could help attract new members and raise brand awareness.
Juewei recently disclosed in external communications that Yamazi was expected to list the following year. Among Juewei’s external investments, Hefu Noodles and Lujiangnan were preparing for listings.
The original article referenced Juewei’s direct external-investment list and related-party transaction status as of June 30, 2022, but the detailed tables were not included in the supplied text.
Note: IPO preparation, expected listing timing, financing amounts, store counts, sales figures, and forward-looking plans are historical as reported around October 20, 2022.