Owner raises $240M at $2.3B for AI tools that run restaurant marketing

The round was announced on August 28, 2026, and is reported as a Series D. Existing investors Meritech, Redpoint, Headline, and Jack Altman also participated. Owner launched in 2020 and has passed $100 million in ARR, and independent restaurants are expected to push more than $1 billion in sales through it this year. Restaurants on the platform grow online traffic by 40% on average within 30 days of launch, according to the company. Its AI agents build and run websites, online ordering, apps, CRM, support, POS and phone ordering. The previous round was a $120 million Series C co-led by Meritech Capital and Headline in May 2025, at a $1B valuation. The company says the money will go toward reaching every independent U.S. restaurant, international markets, and adjacent local business categories. Those adjacent categories include salons, spas and grocers. One analysis notes that the expansion beyond restaurants is a plan, not a proven revenue line, so the valuation partly prices in diversification that has not happened yet. For AI founders, the signal is the buyer: companies with fewer than 50 employees paying for agents that stand in for a marketing or engineering hire. Owner is described as one of the first vertical AI agent platforms to pass $100 million in ARR selling directly to such businesses. A late-stage lead like Goldman's growth equity arm suggests vertical agents with measurable revenue outcomes can reach institutional scale.