Nesto secures €11 million from Expedition to expand its AI workforce management for restaurant chains.

      In summary: Nesto Software GmbH, a workforce management platform based in Karlsruhe tailored for restaurant groups, has secured €11 million in growth equity from Expedition Growth Capital, a fund based in London and Boston that focuses on bootstrapped European software businesses with annual recurring revenue exceeding €5 million. Founded by engineers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Nesto oversees scheduling, demand forecasting, HR workflows, and payroll preparation for over 3,000 restaurant locations and manages more than 100,000 employee shifts daily throughout Europe. This is the company’s first time accepting institutional funding, which will be allocated towards enhancing product development, expanding sales and marketing efforts, and broadening the capabilities of NORA, Nesto’s AI assistant, into a broader framework for restaurant back-office processes.

      Developed without institutional investment

      Nesto was established in Karlsruhe by Felix Kaiser, Co-Founder and CEO, along with Dr. Theodor Ackbarow, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, both of whom have engineering backgrounds from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The company developed its platform and grew its clientele to over 3,000 restaurant locations without external investment, achieving a scale that Expedition Growth Capital specifically looks for before seeking institutional backing. Expedition’s investment approach is focused on bootstrapped European software companies that have surpassed €5 million in annual recurring revenue, based on the belief that companies built without external funding often maintain stronger customer relationships and more sustainable unit economics than those that have relied on early, dilutive financing rounds.

      Expedition Growth Capital launched its third fund at $375 million in December 2025 and typically invests between $10 million and $25 million in each of its portfolio firms. The investment in Nesto falls at the lower end of that spectrum. Will Sheldon, the Expedition partner overseeing the investment, characterized Nesto as "an outstanding example of a category-defining European software company" that has been "quietly reinventing restaurant operations across Europe." Expedition, with offices in London and Boston, concentrates on software businesses that are either profitable or close to profitability and are poised to enhance their sales and marketing capabilities after validating their products with real customers at scale.

      Workforce management as a specific challenge

      The hospitality industry faces a unique and more complex version of workforce management challenges than most other sectors. A restaurant group that operates multiple locations must create schedules that align with variable demand, which can fluctuate with factors such as weather, local events, and weekly patterns—conditions that rigid weekly schedules can’t accommodate. Over-staffing can directly erode profit margins, while under-staffing can compromise service quality and impact customer loyalty. The administrative demands of generating compliant schedules, monitoring attendance, and preparing payroll for a large, decentralized workforce divert management attention that could otherwise focus on service delivery.

      According to Eurostat data, labor costs in the EU hospitality sector increased by 11.2% year-on-year leading up to Nesto's fundraising, while the adoption rate of AI tools among EU hospitality businesses was around 6% as of 2023. This discrepancy between rising costs and slow adoption presents a commercial opportunity for Nesto. TNW explored how AI is enhancing hospitality operations while maintaining a human touch in April 2026, a challenge that Nesto is directly addressing: the company argues that automating scheduling and administration allows managers to prioritize service quality over managing spreadsheets.

      Nesto's platform integrates with point-of-sale systems, vendor platforms, and payroll providers to generate demand forecasts, which the company claims achieve 92% accuracy by analyzing historical sales data, local event calendars, and weather conditions. These forecasts facilitate automated scheduling, which in turn supports HR workflows and payroll processes. Nesto reports a 10% enhancement in labor productivity across its client base, citing McDonald’s as one of its most prominent implementations: the fast-food giant’s European franchisees experienced a 9% decrease in staff costs and a 22% boost in productivity after using the platform. Other notable enterprise clients include L’Osteria and Lagardère.

      NORA and the agent layer

      Nesto's latest product development focus is on NORA, an AI assistant and agent framework that expands the platform's capabilities beyond scheduling to encompass the broader range of operational and administrative responsibilities that restaurant managers regularly manage. NORA is engineered to respond to inquiries related to staffing regulations, compliance needs, and operational metrics while autonomously executing tasks such as absence management, shift-swap approvals, and payroll exceptions without requiring manual input across multiple systems.

      This direction aligns with a wider trend in enterprise software moving towards AI agents that perform tasks on behalf of users instead of merely presenting information. Nvidia introduced enterprise security protocols for AI agent deployments through its NemoClaw platform at GTC 2026 in March, establishing standards for implementing AI agents in regulated and operationally sensitive environments. Nesto’s NORA architecture aims for the same conceptual area, designed for restaurant operations: an agent that can be delegated responsibilities and trusted to complete them within specific operational and compliance frameworks without necess