Bites raises $40M to train store and restaurant staff by text

Bites, a company that trains workers who are not at a desk, has raised $40 million in a Series A round. That is an early, large funding round for a young company. The money brings its total funding to $55 million. Its lessons arrive as short videos on apps staff already use, such as WhatsApp, SMS, Microsoft Teams and Slack. Workers do not need to install anything or log in.

What Bites does

A company gives Bites its documents and standard operating procedures, which are the written steps for how a job should be done. The company's AI tool, called AI Studio, turns them into branded training videos within minutes. The videos can reflect a company's locations, uniforms and products.

• Each lesson, called a Bite, runs up to 90 seconds.
• It pairs a short video with a question, a summary and a discussion.
• The platform supports more than 150 languages, with a one-tap switch.
• An Ask-AI feature answers staff questions using approved company content.

Why frontline training is hard

Bites cites an estimate that about 80% of the global workforce, or 2.8 billion people, do not work at a desk. For them, logging into a training system in the middle of a shift is a real obstacle. Yet what they do can decide whether a promotion works or a new procedure is followed. Bites aims to put short lessons where these workers already are.

The company and the money

The round was led by PeakSpan Capital. Existing investors Vertex Ventures, Horizon Capital, Rittenhouse Ventures and Lyra Ventures also took part. PeakSpan's Phil Dur and Charlie Reinkemeyer will join the board. Bites was founded in 2020 and has 30 employees, with headquarters in New York and a development center in Tel Aviv.

CEO Eran Heffetz got the idea while running restaurants and bars in Tel Aviv. He kept retraining staff as people left and new ones joined. Customers now include Unilever, Coca-Cola, Shake Shack, Wynn Resorts, The Venetian and Compass Group.

What happens next

Bites plans to expand in the United States, improve its AI platform and grow its sales and customer success teams. It also wants to build partner and reseller channels. It plans to move into banking, insurance and businesses that rely on outside workers, while still serving hospitality, retail, consumer goods and manufacturing.

What is not known yet

The company says customers typically reach engagement above 90% within three weeks. It also reports net revenue retention of 161%, which means revenue from existing customers has grown over time. Both figures come from Bites itself. The material does not say how the company checked them. It also gives no pricing and does not say whether Bites is built for small shops or only for large employers. The named customers are all big organizations.