Owner bets on Goldman Sachs to validate the AI agent model for every local business

Owner, the AI-native platform that acts as the AI CMO and CTO for local businesses, announced it has raised $240 million at a $2.3 billion valuation. Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives led the financing, with existing investors Meritech, Redpoint and Headline also participating.

The company builds and runs the digital operations of small merchants — websites, online ordering, mobile apps, CRM, customer support, point-of-sale and AI phone ordering — and says its AI agents manage and improve each part automatically. It started with restaurants.

Owner launched in 2020 and says it has surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue. This year alone, independent restaurant owners will drive more than $1 billion in sales through the platform, the company says, and more than 100 million American consumers have used it.

The company claims thousands of local businesses use the platform and that it now powers more U.S. locations than Domino's or Taco Bell, while ranking as the #1 rated restaurant technology on Capterra and G2.

Co-founder and CEO Adam Guild framed the round as leveling the playing field: Owner is building AI to do the jobs many small business owners have never been able to afford, he said, so local restaurants now have the same tech advantages as the huge chains they compete with — and soon grocers and salons will too.

The team includes leaders from Shopify, DoorDash, Compass, Salesforce and HubSpot, with more than 35 members who are former founders, and the company says it uses AI throughout its own development.

The signal the raise sends goes beyond one company. The bet, in short, is that AI agents can give small merchants the same technology advantages that large chains have long enjoyed — and that a marquee investor like Goldman Sachs validates the agent model for every local business.

Next on Owner's roadmap: serving every U.S. independent restaurant, expanding internationally, and bringing its AI system to salons, spas and independent grocers.

What to watch: whether Owner's agent stack generalizes beyond restaurants, how rivals respond in the SMB software market, and whether the unit economics of AI-run small-business operations hold up at scale.