The Future of Food Tech: These 15 Start-Ups Disrupted MURTEC 2026

Amidst the Roman decor of Caesars Palace, Scale Social AI emerged emperor of MURTEC 2026’s Start-Up Alley, besting a record-breaking pool of entries. From March 9-11, the Las Vegas showcase narrowed 15 semifinalists down to three elite innovators—CapEnergy, Saivory, and Scale Social AI—each pitching a future where AI and automation solve the restaurant industry’s most stubborn friction points.

“Start-Up Alley consistently unearths the most exciting technology in our space,” said Tammy Hanson, membership experience manager at Restaurant Technology Network. “These founders arrive with such passion and a ‘grateful heart’ mentality, ready to show the industry exactly how they plan to shake things up.” 

After the field was trimmed from 15 down to three by a panel of expert judges—Bryan Myers (CIO, City Barbeque), Brian Pearson (CTO, Mendocino Farms), and Anthony Mejia (VP of Technology, Zippy’s)—three finalists pitched the MURTEC audience on their company. Ultimately, voters backed Scale Social AI, a start-up out of the Raleigh-Durham area founded by CEO Runbin Dong. Dong’s comments as he accepted the award were full of gratitude—and offered a glimpse of what makes Start-Up Alley unique. 

“We’ve been to many, many conferences, and this is actually the first time where we’ve been able to actually show up as a startup,” Dong said on the General Session stage. “And so thank you MURTEC, thank you to everyone [who voted]. I think we’re working on a very meaningful problem…We’re deeply rooted in what we believe in, and I think it’s something that we can all relate to.” 

Start-Up Alley’s presenting sponsor is SageNet, which was represented on the General Session stage by Courtney Radke, the company’s VP of Innovation. Radke marveled at the record-breaking number of startups that entered this year’s competition.

"In my role at SageNet, I live by our mantra of our team: make it possible, make it real, and make it work,” Radke said. “And the 'make it work' part is the really big thing. It has to scale. It has to work inside of a restaurant. And if your technology can work inside of a restaurant—one of the most demanding environments that's out there—it can really work anywhere.” 

The Top 3 Finalists: The Future-Makers

Before the crowd crowned a winner, these three finalists proved they are companies to watch in 2026. Each addresses a critical friction point in today's hospitality landscape:

1. CapEnergy: CapEnergy identifies and eliminates energy waste in restaurants using small hardware sensors installed in electrical panel boards. These sensors provide real-time, appliance-level data, allowing operators to establish strict startup and shutdown routines for high-energy equipment like grills, fryers, and HVAC systems. By identifying when appliances are left on unnecessarily or are beginning to fail mechanically, the system helps restaurants reduce overhead costs and improve operational efficiency. 

They said it best: "[CapEnergy] is an operational tool more than a generic energy tool,” said Phineas Page, founder and CEO of CapEnergy. “It's for the [people] on the ground to help save the world at the same time as saving some of your stores."

2. Saivory: Saivory is an AI-driven platform designed to help restaurants reclaim their customer relationships and drive first-party revenue. The platform focuses on three phases of the consumer journey: discovery, conversion, and engagement. By using AI to create dynamic, SEO-optimized "smart landing pages" and a natural language AI ordering assistant, Saivory aims to move customers away from third-party delivery giants and back to direct interaction with the restaurant brand.

They said it best: "Restaurant ordering experiences are generally clunky and onerous, requiring a lot of decisions and calculations,” said Stephen Klein, co-founder and CEO of Saivory. “We have built an AI ordering assistant where you can just simply use plain language and say, 'Order me lunch for my office of 30 people, five are vegetarian.'"

3. Scale Social AI: Scale Social turns a restaurant’s real customers into its most effective advocates. The platform uses on-site QR codes to encourage diners to upload genuine short-form videos of their experiences in exchange for small incentives. Scale Social’s AI then analyzes this content to identify high-performing clips and provides the brand with fully licensed, authentic marketing assets that perform significantly better than traditional, polished advertisements.

They said it best: “We're not in a position [where we try to] generate content using AI,” Scale Social AI founder and CEO Runbin Dong said. “Instead, we collect genuine moments and we use AI to generate insights from the content that we collect."

Why Start-Up Alley Matters

Start-Up Alley is Restaurant Technology Network’s method to invest in its three core tenets: developing industry standards, enabling community, and fostering a culture of innovation. 

“Start-Up Alley is RTN's annual hunt for the technologies that will elevate the restaurant experience, potentially for years to come,” said Abigail Lorden Leonhard, co-founder of RTN and publisher of Hospitality Technology. “Each year, RTN receives a growing pool of submissions. Each year, vetting those gets harder. The companies who make it to MURTEC have already passed a rigorous vetting process by restaurant executives.” 

The 15 semifinalists at this year’s Start-Up Alley were: 

• Anuba Technologies: AI predictive ordering for QSR drive thrus that cuts wait times and increases ticket sizes.
• Arbor: Transforming frontline and customer conversations into actionable insights, helping restaurant leaders create meaningful customer experiences.
• Bites: An AI-first restaurant marketplace for POS providers and restaurants to reach diners directly across AI search.
• Cap Energy: A solution providing multi-unit operators with the hardware and data needed to optimize power consumption and reduce utility costs.
• FranchiseSEE: A performance visibility tool that gives franchisors a real-time, high-level view of unit-level compliance, sales, and operational health.
• Hostie: An intelligent guest-management assistant that uses AI to handle reservations, waitlists, and guest inquiries across digital and voice channels.
• Incept AI: A voice ordering platform that takes fast, accurate phone, drive-thru, and catering orders, as well as reservations.
• RestaurantMate, Inc.: A comprehensive operations toolkit designed to help emerging and mid-market brands manage vendors, inventory, scheduling, and costs in one place.
• Roasted Data: Turns raw POS/HR/loyalty data into actionable insights for leaders who hate spreadsheets. No more noise—just the numbers that actually matter.
• Saivory: A platform offering search engine and AI search visibility to help restaurants create more revenue and create long-lasting consumer relationships in a new era.
• Scale Social: Helps restaurant brands automate and localize their social media presence by turning customers into influencers.
• Storefox: Your AI store assistant for QSR training, Storefox AI records and analyzes in-person conversations at the counter to coach smarter and uncover hidden revenue.
• Table Touch: A provider of high-performance table-management and guest-seating software designed to optimize dining room flow and server rotation.
• Vavoom Technologies Inc.: Brings real-time guest identification, intelligent upselling and optimized fulfillment to the drive thru. 
• XtraRound: Uses vision sensors and custom AI to give restaurant teams real-time situational awareness to ensure no guest need or operational detail ever gets missed.

The application window for next year's competition opens in November. 

Interested in learning more about Start-Up Alley? Email Tammy Hanson, membership experience manager with Restaurant Technology Network: [email protected].