Oversubscribed financing scales the restaurant commerce platform connecting more than 5 million diners with more than 8,500 restaurants that collectively represent nearly $30 billion in annual restaurant GMV

Citi’s participation builds on its existing relationship with inKind, as its venture capital arm, Citi Ventures, invested in the company in 2025.

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — inKind, the curated restaurant commerce platform helping great restaurants access capital, guests, and technology, today announced the closing of an oversubscribed $414 million second financing tranche led by Citi and Cross River alongside Sagard, Varadero Capital, and Trinity Capital. The transaction brings inKind’s total capital raised to more than $1.2 billion.

Just as Airbnb built infrastructure connecting hosts and travelers, and DoorDash built infrastructure connecting merchants and consumers, inKind is building growth infrastructure that connects restaurants with capital and high-intent guests. Its platform combines upfront capital, demand generation, financial tools, guest rewards, proprietary data, and AI-native capabilities. Today, inKind’s curated network connects more than 5 million diners with more than 8,500 restaurants that collectively represent nearly $30 billion in annual restaurant GMV.

The new commitments include:

Senior

Citi: $175 millionCross River: $150 million

Mezzanine

Sagard: $50 millionVaradero Capital: $25 millionTrinity Capital: $14 million

The closing follows Liberty Mutual Investments’ recently announced $320 million commitment as a senior anchor and mezzanine lender. With the expanded facility, inKind plans to deploy more than $1 billion in growth capital to nearly 10,000 restaurants over the next year.

The transaction marks a major milestone for inKind and the restaurant industry, bringing institutional scale to a model designed to help high-quality restaurants access growth capital while creating incremental guest demand. It also expands the capital foundation behind a commerce platform that becomes more valuable as more restaurants and diners join and its proprietary data advantage deepens.

“For more than a decade, inKind has been building a new way to finance and grow great restaurants,” said Johann Moonesinghe, co-founder and CEO of inKind. “When Rajan Moonesinghe, Andy Harris, Jonathan de Wolff and I started the company, we had to use our own capital to fund restaurants because we were building a model the market had not yet seen. It took years of performance, discipline, and proof before institutional investors began to understand the asset class we were creating. The addition of Citi, a global systemically important bank, is an important signal that the market increasingly recognizes the strength of the inKind model. This financing gives us the capacity to scale the restaurant commerce infrastructure we have spent more than a decade building.”

inKind provides restaurants with upfront growth capital and connects them with millions of high-intent guests through its curated dining network. By combining capital, commerce, demand generation, rewards, and technology on one platform, inKind helps operators create incremental revenue, build repeat customer relationships, and grow without relying solely on traditional debt, dilutive equity, or discount-driven marketing.

inKind is highly selective about the restaurants it brings onto the platform. The company focuses on restaurants guests are likely to love and want to experience again — from nationally recognized restaurant groups to standout independent operators. That selectivity is central to the strength of the model: guests trust inKind as a way to discover exceptional restaurants, operators benefit from access to quality demand, and capital providers gain exposure to a curated network designed for durability.

Since 2022, inKind has grown from approximately 1,000 restaurant partners to more than 8,500 today, collectively representing nearly $30 billion in annual restaurant GMV. The company has also grown from approximately 1 million users in March 2024 to more than 5 million users today, creating one of the largest curated restaurant networks in the United States.

“The proof is in the quality of the network,” Moonesinghe continued. “Some of the best restaurant operators in the country trust inKind, and millions of guests use our platform to discover, support, and return to great restaurants. That combination of restaurant quality, guest scale, capital infrastructure, and proprietary data is what makes inKind different.”

Building a New Commerce Model for Great Restaurants

Restaurants are one of the largest and most important sectors in the U.S. economy, but even great operators have historically lacked a growth platform designed around how restaurants actually operate. Traditional debt can be expensive and restrictive. Equity can be dilutive. Discount-driven marketing can damage brand equity and train guests to value promotions more than the restaurant itself.

inKind was built by restaurant operators to give great restaurants a better way to grow.

The company’s platform combines upfront capital, demand generation, guest rewards, financial tools, and AI-native technology designed to help restaurants bring the right guests into the room at the right times. For operators, inKind creates access to growth capital and incremental guest demand without requiring conventional debt service or ownership dilution. For guests, inKind provides a smarter way to discover exceptional restaurants, support the people behind them, and earn more toward their next experience.

Today, inKind partners with nationally recognized groups such as MINA Group, Ethan Stowell Restaurants, and José Andrés Group, as well as acclaimed independent operators including Okàn, Kann, and Superiority Burger. The company has provided more than $850 million in growth capital to restaurant partners and delivered more than $225 million in dining rewards to guests.

Institutional Capital Behind a Scalable Restaurant Platform

The new tranche significantly expands the group of institutional investors supporting inKind’s growth.

Together with Liberty Mutual Investments debt investment, the new financing provides inKind with additional long-term capacity to support restaurant operators nationwide and further validate the company’s model as an emerging institutional asset class.

inKind’s selectivity is central to both its credit model and its network economics. By focusing on strong operators and restaurants that guests are likely to love, revisit, and recommend, inKind protects guest trust and builds a network designed for durability. Better restaurants create stronger guest demand and engagement; stronger demand makes the platform more valuable to operators and more resilient for capital providers.

“This is bigger than a financing milestone for inKind,” said Moonesinghe. “It represents growing recognition that great restaurants are essential businesses, major employers, and anchors of their communities — and that they deserve a capital model designed specifically for how they operate.”

Scaling the Restaurant Growth Infrastructure

inKind is building a growth operating system for restaurants by combining capital, consumer demand, technology, financial tools, proprietary data, and AI-native capabilities on a single platform.

Because inKind operates across thousands of restaurants and millions of guests, its platform can identify patterns, demand opportunities, and guest behavior that no single restaurant group — no matter how sophisticated — could see on its own. The company believes that combining this network-level data with recent advances in artificial intelligence can create a new level of growth infrastructure for restaurants, helping operators make more informed decisions about capital, guest acquisition, demand generation, and long-term growth.

“Restaurants are among the most important engines of local job creation in America,” said Moonesinghe. “When a great restaurant grows, it creates opportunity for chefs, servers, bartenders, managers, suppliers, landlords, and the neighborhoods around them. Restaurants are also the rooms where communities gather — where birthdays, anniversaries, first dates, family dinners, and ordinary nights become lifelong memories. Our mission is to help more great restaurants open, expand, create jobs, and remain part of their communities for generations.”

Moonesinghe added: “We believe inKind is still in the early chapters of what it can become. As our restaurant network grows, we can give more great operators access to millions of guests. As our guest base grows, we can give more diners access to the best restaurants in the country. That flywheel is what we have spent the last twelve years building.”

About inKind
Founded in 2014, inKind is a curated restaurant commerce and growth platform built to help great restaurants thrive and give guests more reasons to gather around the table. Built by restaurant operators for restaurant operators, inKind provides upfront capital and demand tools that help restaurants bring in the right guests at the right times, while giving diners a smarter way to discover exceptional restaurants, support the people behind them, and earn more toward their next experience.

inKind is highly selective about the restaurants it brings onto the platform because guest trust is central to the network. By partnering with restaurants guests are likely to love, revisit, and recommend, inKind helps operators create incremental revenue while giving diners confidence that every inKind experience is worth planning around. Today, inKind connects more than 5 million guests with more than 8,500 restaurants across the United States. Those restaurants collectively represent nearly $30 billion in annual restaurant GMV. The company has provided more than $850 million in capital to restaurant partners and delivered more than $225 million in dining rewards to its users.

Learn more at inKind.com and follow @inkind.app.

Media Contact: press@inkind.com

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SOURCE inKind

Exclusive, director-and-above summit convenes on October 6 in San Francisco to tackle AI-era pay strategy, equity redesign, and the reality of pay transparency

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Pave, the AI compensation platform, today announced Total Rewards Live (TRL) 2026, the premier event for compensation and total rewards leaders, taking place on October 6, 2026, in San Francisco. Reserved exclusively for leaders at the director level and above, TRL brings together 300 of the world’s top compensation and rewards executives for a day of real-time market insights, candid peer exchange, and forward-looking strategy.

Compensation is evolving more rapidly than ever. AI is transforming roles faster than job descriptions can adapt, equity programs face new pressures from talent and market forces, and pay transparency mandates are now a practical reality. TRL 2026 is designed for leaders managing these changes and is an essential event for those responsible for compensation, rewards, and talent retention.

“Comp leaders are fielding harder questions than ever, from boards, from employees, from execs who read one article and now have opinions. What they need is to engage with peers who are getting the same questions and don’t have all the answers either,” said Matt Schulman, CEO of Pave. “TRL is where the people actually setting pay strategy at the fastest-growing, most innovative companies in the world show up, compare notes, and stress-test their thinking against people who’ve made the same calls. You don’t leave with a slide deck. You leave with an answer you can defend to your board.”

A curated agenda for the moment

Anchored by Pave’s Market Trends Talk — a first look at compensation trends drawn from Pave’s real-time dataset of over 9,000 companies — the day features six discussions led by practitioners in the trenches:

Pricing the AI Workforce — how to value work when the work itself keeps changing, from leveling frameworks to pricing roles that didn’t exist six months agoEquity, Redesigned — how leaders are rethinking equity strategy as AI talent commands richer packages and employees ask harder questions about valuePay Transparency: Is 2026 a Reality Check? — what’s working, what’s backfiring, and what leaders would do differently now that mandates have been live long enough to judgeAI for Comp Teams — beyond the hype: the AI use cases delivering real efficiency gains today, and where human judgment still matters mostPay-for-Performance, Reimagined — positioning compensation as a driver of retention, performance, and business outcomes, not just an operating costThe Future of Total Rewards — bold perspectives on what the total rewards function looks like in three to five years, and what leaders should invest in now

Backed by the leaders in compensation advisory

TRL 2026 is made possible by a sponsor lineup that reflects the depth of the compensation ecosystem: Alpine Rewards, Compensation Advisory Partners, Infinite Equity, Nua Group, Pearl Meyer, and Carver Edison — firms trusted by boards and rewards teams at the world’s leading companies.

Registration

Attendance is limited to compensation and total rewards leaders at the director level and above. Seats are limited. To request an invitation and learn more, visit pave.com/trl/event.

About Pave

Pave is the AI compensation platform, purpose-built for compensation leaders. Pave connects to HRIS, ATS, and equity systems to create a unified, real-time data layer, helping teams transform hours of manual analysis into defensible, board-ready compensation decisions in minutes. Pave is built on employee records from 9,000+ companies. Learn more at pave.com.

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SOURCE Pave

Association recognized for advancing sustainability, interoperability, and innovation in building automation worldwide.

MARIETTA, Ga., Aug. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — BACnet International is excited to announce that the association has been selected as a 2026 Gold Award recipient in the American Society of Association Executives’ (ASAE) prestigious Power of Associations Awards program for the organization’s global BTL (BACnet Testing Laboratories) Certification Program. The recognition highlights how associations can drive industry advancement, solve complex challenges, and create measurable societal benefits.

The ASAE Power of Associations Awards honor associations whose programs demonstrate extraordinary contributions to industry and professional advancement, economic development, advocacy, community engagement, and societal improvement. BACnet International was recognized for the BTL Certification Program’s role in transforming open building automation communications into a globally trusted framework for interoperability, energy efficiency, and sustainability.

“Receiving ASAE’s Gold Award is a tremendous honor and a testament to the collaborative efforts of the global BACnet community,” said Andy McMillan, BACnet International President and Managing Director. “The BTL Certification Program demonstrates what can be achieved when competitors, engineers, and industry stakeholders unite around a common goal: creating interoperable building automation systems that deliver measurable value for building owners, occupants, and the environment.”

Created and administered by BACnet International in collaboration with the BACnet Interest Group Europe and the rest of the global BACnet community, the BTL Certification Program provides independent testing and certification for BACnet products. Before earning BTL Certification, products must undergo rigorous third-party testing to verify compliance with the BACnet standard and demonstrate interoperability with products from other manufacturers. Today, more than 1,600 BTL Certified products are deployed worldwide, supporting building automation applications across HVAC, lighting, energy management, access control, fire safety, and other critical systems.

BACnet International’s award-winning submission highlighted the program’s environmental contributions. According to a 2026 study conducted by the University of New Hampshire’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, BACnet-enabled building automation systems, including those that have undergone BTL testing and certification, have helped mitigate approximately 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions globally between 1995 and 2025. By 2030, that number is projected to increase to 2.06 billion as adoption of interoperable, energy-efficient building systems expands.

Beyond environmental benefits, the BTL Certification Program has helped foster a competitive, multi-vendor marketplace that reduces integration risks, lowers costs for building owners, and expands opportunities for manufacturers worldwide. By providing a trusted framework for interoperability, the program has enabled broader adoption of building automation technologies while supporting workforce development and increasing mobility for building automation professionals.

The award also recognizes the unique role associations play in addressing industry-wide challenges. BACnet International has successfully united over 230 manufacturers, including over 160 corporate members, to collectively support a certification ecosystem that benefits the entire building automation industry and the communities it serves.

ASAE will formally recognize the 2026 Power of Associations Award recipients during its Power of Associations Awards celebration in Washington, D.C.

About BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL)
BACnet Testing Laboratories was established by BACnet International to support compliance testing and interoperability testing activities. It consists of the BTL Manager and the BTL Working Group (BTL-WG). Its activities include publishing the BTL Implementation Guidelines document; awarding worldwide BTL Listings to qualified BACnet devices; publishing and maintaining the BTL Test Package; approving testing laboratories for BTL Testing; providing testing services through its managed BACnet laboratory; and organizing the annual PlugFest Interoperability Workshop.

About BACnet International
BACnet International is an industry association that facilitates the successful use of the BACnet protocol in building automation and control systems through interoperability testing, educational programs, and promotional activities. BACnet International oversees the operation of BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL) and maintains a global database of tested products. The BACnet standard was developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and has been made publicly available so that manufacturers can create interoperable systems and products. BACnet International complements the work of the ASHRAE standards committee and BACnet-related interest groups around the world. BACnet International members include building owners, consulting engineers, and facility managers, as well as companies involved in the design, manufacture, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of control equipment that uses BACnet for communication.

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SOURCE BACnet International