Kea is a restaurant voice AI platform founded in 2018 by CEO Adam Ahmad, based in Mountain View, California. Ahmad had already sold a prior delivery startup, Food Lovers United Corp, to Google Shopping before founding Kea, and built the company on experience working in restaurant technology beforehand. Kea has raised close to $30 million in funding from investors including Xfund, Streamlined Ventures, and SoftBank's Deepcore AI fund.
Kea answers restaurant phone lines, listens to a caller's order in natural conversation, and sends the completed order straight to the restaurant's point-of-sale and kitchen display system, claiming 99.3% menu accuracy across the chains it serves. Beyond voice, the company added Text AI, letting guests place or modify orders over text message using the same underlying system, and the platform now supports setup in under five minutes through a self-service onboarding flow that connects directly to POS systems like Square.
Kea targets restaurant chains and franchise groups, with named partnerships including Domino's, Five Guys, Donatos, and Primanti Brothers, rather than single independent locations experimenting with AI. Pricing is flat and published: $450 per month per location (roughly $15 per day) on an annual contract, covering unlimited calls and orders with no per-order fees, and custom pricing for operators with 20 or more locations.
