# Eli Chait

> Eli Chait is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wholesail, a San Francisco-based B2B payment risk management platform modernizing accounts receivable for food and beverage distributors. His origin story is unusually grounded: at age 12, he was entering invoices for his father's restaurant in Los Angeles. That early hands-on encounter with the pain of paper-based B2B trade became the north star for his entire career - from co-founding Copilot (a restaurant analytics startup acquired by OpenTable) to leading Wholesail through a $22.6M Series A. With a team of repeat entrepreneurs forged at OpenTable, Wholesail is building the credit and payments network for the $1+ trillion US food distribution market.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Wholesail
- **Organizations:** Wholesail, Copilot, OpenTable, Alsop Louie Partners
- **From:** Los Angeles, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, High School Diploma, Beverly Hills High School
- **Known for:** Co-founded Copilot (restaurant analytics), acquired by OpenTable in 2014, Led product migration of 20,000 restaurants from OpenTable's legacy system to cloud-based GuestCenter, Raised $22.6M Series A for Wholesail from top-tier investors including 8VC and Fin Capital

## Career timeline

- **2000** — First job at age 12: entering invoices for father's restaurant, Spark Woodfire Grill, Los Angeles
- **2008** — Joined Alsop Louie Partners as Venture Associate
- **2011** — Co-founded Copilot, a restaurant revenue management and analytics company
- **2014** — OpenTable acquired Copilot; Chait became Director of Product Management at OpenTable
- **2014-2017** — At OpenTable, led 6 PMs overseeing analytics, restaurant growth, and GuestCenter; migrated 20,000 restaurants to cloud platform
- **2018** — Co-founded Wholesail (July 2018) with former OpenTable colleagues
- **2022** — Wholesail raised $22.6M Series A (January 2022) from Fin Capital, Foundry, 8VC, Thomvest Ventures, Ulu Ventures
- **2025** — Wholesail partnered with CAI Software for AR automation and credit management integration
- **2026** — Wholesail launched Risk of Default Scores, an ML-powered buyer default prediction feature via Lighthouse credit exchange

## Achievements

- Co-founded Copilot (restaurant analytics), acquired by OpenTable in 2014
- Led product migration of 20,000 restaurants from OpenTable's legacy system to cloud-based GuestCenter
- Raised $22.6M Series A for Wholesail from top-tier investors including 8VC and Fin Capital
- Built Wholesail to help distributors achieve 35% faster payment collection
- Launched Lighthouse, a real-time B2B credit exchange for food distributors
- Developed Risk of Default Scores powered by ML trained on 10+ years of payment data
- Helped 40,000+ small and medium businesses improve operations through OpenTable

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Wholesail launched Risk of Default Scores - ML model predicting buyer default probability, trained on millions of invoices via Lighthouse credit exchange
- **2025-06** — Wholesail partnered with BlueTrace to streamline AR and payments for seafood producers and distributors
- **2025-03** — Wholesail partnered with CAI Software to deliver AR automation and credit management for food distributors
- **2025-02** — Published research on payment terms and collection speed, finding shorter terms often lead to more late payments
- **2025-01** — Published analysis of vendor payment behavior variations across restaurants and retailers

## Links

- Website: https://www.paywholesail.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/elichait
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/elichait
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eli.chait/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/eli-chait
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-14