As per tradition, I document my angel investments here on the blog (of course only with the approval of the company founders, some prefer to not go public with investment news). I do this mainly as a way to capture my thinking at the time of the investment, but also it has proven to be useful as a place to point people when they ask about the investment. It’s a practice I recommend to every angel investor.

In this spirit I am pleased to announce I recently joined the angel round of LastPOS. Based in Barcelona, Last is building a point of sale system for restaurants that meets the needs of the modern age.

The last few years have seen significant change in the restaurant industry. It’s perhaps a paradox, in that no matter how much societal change there is, I think we can all confidently agree that people will always have a demand for food. Nevertheless though, the way people are eating is changing quickly. Particularly in urban areas delivery via third-party services like Glovo, Uber Eats, JustEat, etc is becoming a massive channel. Perhaps you saw the recent news that Uber Eats now accounts for 10% of McDonalds’ orders in the UK, only a few years after launching. This, combined with other macro trends like the increased digitisation of payment and booking, means restaurants are struggling to keep up. Frankly, like many small businesses in Spain, they are not at all optimally prepared for digitisation.

LastPOS steps into to fill this gap by providing a point of sale system that easily integrates with all the major delivery players. Existing POS solutions barely scratch the surface of the possibilities of digitisation, for example in terms of real time analytics for managers or business owners. Here also LastPOS allows restaurants to leap forward.

The founders, Ivan and Eric, are uniquely positioned to address these challenges, having both worked at Glovo, the leading delivery service in Spain (and other markets). They saw first hand the struggles restaurants had adapting to changing consumer demand patterns. Over the last few months they have built up a team and the service is now live in several restaurants here in Barcelona, with many talks ongoing including with some very significant chains.

Of course just building a better mousetrap does not mean customers will come flocking to the service, there are many real challenges with selling to an “offline” industry like restaurants. But the current period of rapid change is one in which a motivated, talented team can achieve a lot and this is my bet on LastPOS. I look forward to watching (and helping) their progress in the coming years.

Buen provecho!