Sam Adekunle: How BimpeAI Is Building The Future of Restaurant-to-Customer Commerce

Hospitality is one of the world’s most human industries, yet often the most disconnected. After listening to hundreds of restaurant owners describe their struggles with fragmented tools and high commissions, Sam Adekunle built BimpeAI, an AI-powered system designed to help restaurants own their customer relationships, operate autonomously, and grow on their own terms.

Tell us about BimpeAI

BimpeAI started with a simple question: “Why should restaurants lose control of their own customers?”

Every day, restaurants work tirelessly to serve people they love, but when those same customers order online, the relationship shifts to a delivery app that takes a huge cut. We wanted to change that.

At BimpeAI, we build tools that let restaurants take orders, get paid, and talk to their customers directly through WhatsApp, Instagram, or their own website. No middleman, no 30% fees, no dependency.

Today, a restaurant using BimpeAI can manage everything from orders, payments, reservations, and promotions from one dashboard. It’s about giving local businesses back their independence.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

The idea didn’t come from a whiteboard, it came from walking into kitchens.

I spent time with restaurant owners in London, and the pattern was always the same: amazing food, loyal customers, and broken systems. One owner told me, “Sam, I can’t even text my own customers. The app owns them, not me.”

That hit hard. I realised technology had made it easier to order food but harder for restaurants to own their success.

So I decided to build something that reversed that, a system where restaurants could build their own direct channels to customers. That’s how BimpeAI began, as a promise to help small businesses regain what’s theirs.

Tell us about your core product or service

At the heart of BimpeAI is an autonomous chat assistant that helps restaurants take orders, answer questions, and manage customers even when no one is online.

Imagine a customer sending a WhatsApp message at midnight asking, “Do you still have jollof rice?”  and getting a real-time response, being able to order, pay, and even get delivery updates, all without the restaurant lifting a finger. That’s what BimpeAI does.

It’s not another ordering platform. It’s a conversation engine that connects directly with a restaurant’s existing systems POS, menus, and delivery partners so everything just works in the background.

Right now, we integrate with Foodhub and Stuart for delivery, and we’re expanding to connect with major global systems like Toast, Square, and Shopify.
Our goal is to make chat the most powerful business tool a restaurant can have one that never sleeps, never misses an order, and keeps the relationship between the restaurant and the customer alive.

Because in the end, it’s not just about automation, it’s about helping restaurants stay human at scale.

What most excites you about the restaurant tech industry?

The hospitality world is incredibly innovative, with advancements from POS systems to data tools. AI is now integrating these, helping restaurants operate smarter and personalize customer experiences.

We’re enthusiastic about restaurant tech’s evolution. While solutions like advanced POS and delivery robots are remarkable, AI’s power to unify these technologies stands out, boosting efficiency and customer interaction..

For years, restaurants have had too many systems that don’t talk to each other. Now, AI is becoming the bridge allowing them to run smarter operations, personalise customer experiences, and respond instantly, even when no one’s at the counter.

We’ve met restaurant owners who said, “We’ve been trying to solve this problem for years, how do we take orders directly, automate responses, and still feel personal?”
For many, seeing BimpeAI in action, taking orders through WhatsApp and integrating them into their existing POS felt like the breakthrough they’d been waiting for.

That’s what excites me most about this industry right now. AI isn’t replacing people; it’s amplifying them. It’s giving small restaurant teams superpowers to serve more customers, stay connected 24/7, and still keep that human warmth that makes hospitality special.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome along the way?

Building trust.

When you’re small and new, convincing a restaurant owner to hand over part of their operation is tough. Many have been burnt by tech that overpromised and underdelivered.

To overcome that, we focused on results. Instead of marketing jargon, we showed them live dashboards, growing sales, and real customer messages coming in. That transparency turned early sceptics into believers.

Another challenge has been growth discipline, learning when not to chase every shiny idea. Staying focused on what truly helps restaurants win is an everyday exercise in restraint.

What is your number one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Start with empathy, not excitement.

The best ideas don’t start from ambition, they start from curiosity. Go sit with your users, feel their frustration, and build from that place.

Also, don’t confuse speed with progress. It’s okay to move slowly if you’re learning deeply. The market will reward understanding over hype every single time.

What can we hope to see from BimpeAI in the future?

We’re just getting started.

Right now, we’re focused on restaurants, but our vision is much broader. We’re turning BimpeAI into a universal chat-commerce platform for small businesses. Whether you run a café in London or a boutique in Lagos, you’ll be able to sell, get paid, and stay connected with your customers directly through chat.

We’re also building deeper integrations with platforms like Shopify, Square and Toast to make that vision seamless.

At the core of it all is a belief that business should feel personal again. Every sale should start with a “Hi” not a transaction ID.