57. Nory

Founder: Conor Sheridan
Year founded: 2022
Website: nory.ai

In 2023, running a successful restaurant is a tough nut to crack. Hospitality businesses are going bust at a faster rate than during the pandemic, which is due to an unpalatable menu of surging energy and food costs, staff shortages, and falling bookings.

Nory brings technology to the table, centralising core restaurant operations into a single platform that offers the necessary visibility to manage performance and profitability.

Establishing an eatery in 2018, Conor Sheridan soon found operations too hot to handle. “I started a restaurant and realised it needed its own OS,” the Nory founder explains. “I had grown tired of hacking together existing restaurant management systems, spreadsheets, and paper printouts. Instead of accepting the status quo, I built the operating system I wished I’d had from day one.”

Instead of accepting the status quo, I built the operating system I wished I'd had from day one.

The biggest challenge for Nory was launching during a lockdown, when the hospitality industry was an inhospitable environment. In spite of reduced hours and footfall making staying open a life or death situation for many operators, the desire for the product was evidenced by multiple sign-ups – even before the platform went live.

Nory prides itself on being “an intelligent co-pilot,” built for younger and less experienced restauranteurs and staff by providing them with the visibility and data needed to simplify the supply chain, fatten gross margins, as well as onboard, engage and reward employees. The spicy claim that the platform can increase net profits by 20-100% is evidenced by clients such as Jamie Oliver, Freshly Chopped, and Buns From Home.

The last financial year has been a great one for Nory – and securing £6 million in seed funding is the cherry on the cake. The future looks just as appetising with a huge addressable market of approximately $30bn in the UK and overseas. “In five years’ time, Nory will be the go-to operating system for hospitality businesses around the world,” asserts Sheridan, “When businesses think of tech for our vertical, they will think of Nory.”

Nory has earned its place on the Startups 100 by providing a tasty solution to a tricky problem for many hospitality operators. We believe that the proof is already in this pudding.