Vishal Agarwal is the founder and CEO of Checkmate (itsacheckmate.com), a New York restaurant technology company that pipes online orders from delivery apps straight into restaurant point-of-sale systems and centralizes menu management across platforms. He started the company in 2016 after waiting too long for a check at a San Francisco airport restaurant, and grew it from a bill-splitting idea into a full digital operations suite used by brands from independent eateries to Arby's and Wendy's. A former Citigroup analyst and Choxi.com marketing chief, Agarwal built Checkmate past 100 million processed orders and, backed by Inspire Brands, expanded into kiosks, reconciliation, and voice AI.
Adam Dougherty is the co-founder and CEO of Blizzfull, a Glendale, California restaurant-technology company that builds branded websites and online ordering tools so restaurants keep their customers instead of renting them from third-party apps. A USC film-school graduate who crossed over from Hollywood into software engineering, Dougherty channels a self-described obsession with aesthetics into ordering software, an industry not known for good looks. He and co-founder Zach Zurn started Blizzfull around 2011-2012 after struggling to order office lunch, and in 2023 retooled the platform around AI for menu descriptions, marketing suggestions, and one-click website generation.