NextMenu

What NextMenu does

NextMenu is a UK-based hospitality technology company founded in 2014 and operated under parent engineering firm NGi Systems. The company builds digital self-order systems for restaurants, cafés, and other hospitality venues, with a product portfolio spanning self-order kiosks (premium free-standing and compact mini form factors), table-side tablets, kitchen/bar dashboards, and staff-facing wearables including Sony WiFi-enabled smartwatches and augmented reality glasses. The platform connects customer ordering surfaces to back-of-house operations and waiter devices in real time, allowing venues to capture orders, process payments, and communicate service requests without traditional POS bottlenecks. Customer segments are segmented by use case into counter-service quick-service restaurants and cafés and full-service table-service venues, addressing pain points such as long queues, waiter-attention friction, and limited visibility into ordering patterns.

The technical architecture is built around a real-time in-venue data flow that links a customer-driven point of sale (kiosk or tablet) with an interactive digital menu, a real-time communication tool, kitchen and bar dashboards, and wearable endpoints for staff. The augmented reality glasses component, which uses QR code and mosaic image visual markers to surface table status and action dashboards to waiters, was awarded Restaurant Tech Product of the Year 2017 at Restaurant Tech Live. The company has also explored adjacent robotics concepts, including a robot waitress prototype introduced in 2017 as part of a broader robotics project.

NextMenu delivers its offering as an all-in-one service delivered on a subscription/recurring revenue basis, with the company describing pricing as not publicly disclosed. Go-to-market is direct sales combined with an event-driven presence at UK hospitality technology trade shows, including Restaurant Tech Live (where NextMenu served as main sponsor in 2017), The Restaurant Show, eat.drink.sleep, and Takeaway Expo, plus distribution partnerships with kiosk hardware providers such as Kiosks4Business. Marketing is supported by a content blog and organic social channels. The company is privately held, headquartered in London, with a headcount of 1-10 employees, no disclosed external funding rounds, and operating geographies restricted to the UK.

Name

NextMenu

Legal name

NGi Systems

Website

https://nextmenu.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

NextMenu is a UK-based hospitality technology company that provides digital self-order systems—including kiosks, tablets, kitchen dashboards, and waiter wearables—for restaurants and cafés, enabling real-time ordering, payment, and service communication on a subscription basis.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

London

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Software/SaaS Subscription: All-in-One solution delivered as a service, suggesting a subscription or service-based revenue model for their self-order systems, tablets, and connected devices.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

NextMenu provides digital self-order solutions for hospitality venues, comprising self-order/self-pay kiosks and tablets connected to kitchen/bar dashboards and waiter wearables (smartwatches and AR glasses). The platform enables customers to browse menus, place orders, pay, and call a waiter, while orders flow in real time to back-of-house staff and actionable KPIs are delivered to venue managers.

Product overview

NextMenu is an all-in-one digital hospitality platform delivered as a service. The core portfolio consists of Self-Order Kiosks and Tablets, which serve as the customer-facing point of sale. These are connected to back-of-house Kitchen/Bar Dashboards and staff-facing Smart-Watches and Augmented Reality Glasses worn by waiters. The platform enables customers to browse a digital menu, place orders, pay, and call service with a tap, while the kitchen receives orders in real time and staff receive discreet wrist notifications or heads-up AR overlays. The ecosystem is designed to automate repetitive hospitality tasks while providing venue managers with new KPIs and data-driven menu optimization capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• NextMenu Kiosk: Free-standing self-order, self-pay kiosk system for medium to large venue chains. Standardized deployment with plug-and-play capability.
• NextMenu Tablet
• NextMenu Mini Kiosk
• NextMenu Smartwatch
• NextMenu Augmented Reality Glasses

Products and services

• NextMenu Kiosk Self-order, self-pay kiosk system for hospitality venues, available in multiple form factors (free-standing premium and compact mini versions). Customers browse the digital menu, place orders, and pay directly at the kiosk, with orders transmitted instantly to the kitchen.
• NextMenu Tablet Tablet-based digital menu and customer self-order solution for hospitality venues, enabling customers to browse menus, place orders, call a waiter, and pay from their table. Originally the company's first self-order device.
• Kitchen/Bar Dashboards Real-time dashboards displayed in the kitchen and bar areas, receiving live order data directly from customer kiosks and tablets, enabling staff to track and manage order fulfillment.
• NextMenu Smartwatch WiFi-enabled smartwatch worn by waiters, paired with the smart menu to deliver discrete haptic push notifications when an order is ready for delivery or a customer requests assistance.
• NextMenu Augmented Reality Glasses Augmented reality glasses for waiters that overlay real-time notifications, table status overviews via QR code markers, and action dashboards to enhance waiter awareness, response rates, and staff management. Award-winning product (Restaurant Tech Product of the Year 2017).
• NextMenu Mini Kiosk Compact wireless self-order kiosk (approximately 28 times smaller than the standard free-standing kiosk) featuring almost all of the larger kiosk's capabilities, designed for small venues such as delis.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

14 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Restaurant Tech LivecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2017NextMenu partnered with Restaurant Tech Live as their main sponsor in 2017, operating 3 different stands at the event. This was their key event for showcasing their cutting-edge hospitality technology and engaging with hospitality businesses from around the world who are seeking technology solutions.
• Kiosks4BusinessminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorKiosk hardware provider partnered with NextMenu for distribution of self-order kiosk solutions.
• Arena International Food ServiceminorOthersEvent partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Hotel Tech LiveminorOthersEvent partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Takeaway ExpominorOthersEvent partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• The Restaurant ShowminorOthersEvent partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• YFoodminorOthersEvent partner/attendee appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Venue InsightminorOthersMedia partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• QuickBite MagazineminorOthersTrade publication partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• CLH Magazine (Caterer Licensee Hotelier)minorOthersTrade publication partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Restaurant UpdateminorOthersTrade publication partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Hotelier & Hospitality DesignminorOthersTrade publication partner appearing in 2017 partner roundup.
• Eat Drink SleepminorOthersIndustry publication and event partner; NextMenu contributed content to their August 2016 edition.
• NGi SystemscoreOEM/ Whitelabel/ Licensing PartnerNextMenu is engineered by NGi Systems. Contact email [email protected] is used for NextMenu communications.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Lightspeed Restaurant: Lightspeed offers a cloud POS for full-service and quick-service restaurants with table-side tablets, kiosks, and kitchen display systems. Comparable as a broad incumbent in the same restaurant-tech stack NextMenu plays in, with European (including UK) presence that overlaps NextMenu's market.
• Square for Restaurants: Square (Block) provides an integrated restaurant POS with self-order kiosks, handheld POS, online ordering and payments to small and mid-market hospitality venues. Directly comparable self-order kiosk product and target customer (counter-service cafés and delis) make it a relevant broad incumbent peer.
• Toast: Toast is a leading cloud-based restaurant POS and management platform offering hardware (kiosks, handheld terminals), software, payments, and online ordering for F&B venues. It is comparable as a broad incumbent covering the same self-order kiosk/tablet digital menu space NextMenu targets, but at much larger scale and across the US/UK.

Direct peers

• Revel Systems: Revel Systems provides iPad-based POS with self-order kiosk and kitchen display modules for restaurants, cafés, and bars. Comparable as a direct competitor on integrated hardware/software for hospitality venues.
• TouchBistro: TouchBistro provides iPad-based POS and self-order tablet solutions for restaurants and cafés, with comparable SaaS-plus-hardware pricing model and similar focus on counter-service and full-service venues. Most directly comparable point-of-sale peer to NextMenu's tablet-first proposition.
• Ziosk: Ziosk deploys tabletop tablets for ordering, payment, and guest engagement in casual dining restaurants — a near-direct functional equivalent of NextMenu's Tablet Menu product for table-service venues.
• Olo: Olo powers direct digital ordering for restaurant chains via APIs and integrations to kiosks, tablets, and POS systems. Comparable as a software layer that sits behind self-order kiosks and digital menus in chain restaurants.

Emerging players

• ChowNow: ChowNow offers direct online ordering systems and digital menu tools to independent restaurants. Comparable as an emerging adjacent player in the digital menu/ordering layer that often pairs with kiosk deployments.
• Bbot: Bbot provides QR-code and tablet-based contactless ordering, payment, and kitchen display for restaurants and bars. Comparable as an emerging player in the same in-venue digital menu and ordering category.
• Presto (Lightspeed): Presto builds AI-driven restaurant ordering kiosks, tablets, and drive-thru systems, including wearable and voice solutions. Comparable as an emerging specialist in self-order hardware and front-of-house automation, overlapping with NextMenu's kiosk and wearable roadmap.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/nextmenu
• Facebookfacebook.com/NGi.NextMenu
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/nextmenu

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about NextMenu