According to Silicon Republic, Flipdish co-founder Conor McCarthy says AI is fundamentally transforming how the Irish unicorn operates internally and serves its restaurant clients. The company, founded in 2015 by Conor and James McCarthy, reached a $1.25 billion valuation in 2022 after Tencent-led funding but faced challenges including 40% staff cuts in 2024 that reduced losses by 57%. Post-Covid, Flipdish refocused on its core delivery and takeaway restaurant clients in Ireland and UK, acquiring POS company Jinoby in 2023 to create an all-in-one platform. Today the company has rebounded to 300 employees and is seeing steady revenue growth while holding about 50% of Ireland’s takeaway market but only 5% in the UK.
The post-Covid realignment
Here’s the thing about rapid growth – it can pull you in directions you never intended. Flipdish learned this the hard way during Covid when everyone from hotels to stadiums wanted digital solutions. They went from being laser-focused on deliveries and takeouts to trying to solve QR codes for hotel rooms and kiosks for train companies. Basically, they got stretched too thin. The 40% staff cuts in 2024 weren’t just about trimming fat – they were about getting back to their core competency. And it worked. By refocusing on their ideal customers and acquiring Jinoby for their POS technology, they created that elusive all-in-one platform restaurants actually need.
The AI workforce revolution
Now here’s where it gets really interesting. McCarthy describes how AI is changing who can build software at Flipdish. Their office manager – not a software engineer – used AI tools like Cursor to create a flight policy checker for the team. That’s the kind of productivity boost that changes everything. But the real transformation is happening in customer support. Support managers who used to manage people are now managing AI agents. These agents automatically triage queries and issue refunds where appropriate. For restaurants using Flipdish, this means tasks that used to take hours – like creating marketing imagery – now take minutes with AI enhancement tools. It’s basically giving small restaurants the kind of marketing firepower that used to require agencies and big budgets.
The agentic AI opportunity
McCarthy sees something bigger coming though – the shift to agentic AI where people order through ChatGPT or Claude instead of food delivery apps. This could be disastrous for the JustEats and Uber Eats of the world, but McCarthy thinks it actually helps Flipdish. Why? Because they’re embedded directly in the restaurant’s operations. Whether an order comes from a website, app, or ChatGPT, it flows through Flipdish’s stack into the kitchen display system. They become the plumbing that doesn’t care where the water comes from. It’s a smart position to be in as ordering habits evolve.
Scaling challenges ahead
Flipdish’s main challenge now is onboarding customers at scale. They’ve got the product-market fit – their customers love them – but they need to make it easier for restaurants to get started. With only 5% market share in the UK versus 50% in Ireland, there’s massive growth potential if they can solve the onboarding puzzle. McCarthy says the next 18 months will be about deepening UK penetration through better automation. It’s a classic scaling problem that many tech companies face when they’ve found product-market fit but need to operationalize growth. The good news? They’ve already navigated the harder part – surviving the post-Covid hangover and finding their focus again.
