At Ambl, we are on a mission to combat the current loss in revenue within hospitality venues by filling empty seats that arise from last-minute or same-day cancellations. It is a platform set to transform and build recovery for the hospitality industry by matching people with real-time availability. We are an app that gives venues the power to see nearby active diners whilst giving customers on demand responses.
The hospitality sector is lagging behind other industries when it comes to tech, and we are here to bridge the disconnect. We believe that just like travel, shopping and food delivery – hospitality should be just as accessible.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
My co-founder Bobby and I were stationed in our previous jobs having just come back from the second lockdown. Freshly reunited as a team, I was tasked with booking a table that evening for a party size of eight. After scrolling for what seemed like hours, and calling around venues to no avail, I said out loud ‘‘It can’t be this hard to book a table.” Bobby and I suddenly turned around in our chairs and the rest is history…
I quickly called my oldest friend Jed (also a co-founder) and told him about our ‘light-bulb’ moment. Given Jed’s background in tech and recruitment this seemed like a great team to give it a good crack!
How has the company evolved over the last couple of months?
In ten months since the lightbulb moment, we have raised a total of £1.2m across three rounds of funding and at the time of writing due to close our forth in response to demand and buy-in from the market, and backing from the industry.
The investment has allowed us to grow and strengthen our team to ensure we have a good understanding of all the nuances of our customers.
From walking around the streets of London after work with a backpack and an app demo Ambl now has over 1,300 venues signed up across central London.
The focus now is ensuring a smooth, controlled and successful launch as we introduce London to Ambl this summer.
What can we hope to see from Ambl in the future?
We want to ensure that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing and no matter who you are with – you are still able to receive on-demand and real time availability from venues. We want to work with the best in hospitality and support a simple solution to combat no-shows and cancellations within the industry. We want to use our consumer data to constantly improve Ambl.
After proving the concept to Londoners later this summer, we plan to roll out the business model across the rest of the UK. Within the next two years, we hope to establish Ambl across the pond – starting in New York where we have connections in the industry, before going global on a bigger scale.
The end goal? For Ambl to be a household name.