The news
Meadow AI, a Seattle startup selling a digital secret shopper that monitors restaurant and store staff through in-store video and audio, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Ulu Ventures, CommsTrader reported on September 29, 2026.
York IE, Flying Fish, TenOneTen Ventures, Leadout Capital and Wedbush Ventures also took part, according to the report. It said the financing includes the conversion of $6 million in simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs), which turn into shares at a later priced round, from earlier pre-seed funding, bringing Meadow's total to $13 million.
A Form D, the notice companies file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when they sell securities privately, backs up the scale of the round. Meadow AI, Inc. filed it on September 25, 2026, listing $13,109,993 in equity and related securities sold to 38 investors, with the first sale on September 11 and nothing left to sell. The filing names Jai Sim, Abbas Guvenilir and Dragos Velicanu as executive officers, and Guvenilir signed it as president.
According to CommsTrader, Meadow's system draws video and audio from cameras a location already has and combines them with staffing and inventory data. It tracks how well teams carry out their work, how fast customers are served and the condition of the store, then flags slowdowns and pushes real-time prompts and coaching to front-line employees while customers are still there.
The report said Meadow has more than $3 million in contracted annual recurring revenue and more than $1.4 million in live annual recurring revenue, that its software grew six times over in the past year, and that it now works with more than nine brands and has 17 employees. Tanvir Bhangoo, formerly vice president of enterprise solutions at restaurant software maker Toast (TOST), joined as chief revenue officer, it said.
Co-founders Max Jai Sim and Abbas Guvenilir previously co-founded real estate startup Modus, which Compass acquired in 2020; chief technology officer Dragos Velicanu holds a physics Ph.D. from MIT, according to the report. The report did not describe how Meadow handles employee consent, notice of audio recording or how long footage is kept.
The numbers
- New seed funding (reported)
- $7 million
- Securities sold, per SEC Form D
- $13,109,993 to 38 investors
- SAFEs converted (reported)
- $6 million
- Contracted annual recurring revenue (reported)
- More than $3 million
- Live annual recurring revenue (reported)
- More than $1.4 million
- Employees (reported)
- 17
Why CEOs should care
For chief operating officers at restaurant and retail chains, the pitch is a manager who never leaves the floor: software that spots a bottleneck and tells workers what to fix while guests are still there. It is built to reuse the cameras a location already has, so the hardware question is small; the data question is not. Before a pilot, ask exactly what is recorded, whether audio picks up customer conversations as well as staff, how long clips are stored, who can view them, and whether the system scores individual employees or only locations.
General counsel and HR leaders should treat audio as the sensitive part. Ask counsel whether capturing conversations requires employee or customer consent in each state where you operate, whether notice of electronic monitoring is required, and whether any union agreement or works council covers new monitoring tools. Decide in writing whether the data may be used for discipline, because that choice will shape how workers receive the tool.
For CFOs and investors, the reported figures show buyers are signing: more than $3 million in contracted recurring revenue against more than $1.4 million live suggests a sizable backlog still being deployed. That gap is also a diligence point, since contracted revenue can shrink if pilots stall over privacy or labor objections, and no customers were named in the report.
The bigger picture
Meadow is part of a push to give physical stores the kind of moment-by-moment data that online retailers take for granted, using hardware operators already own. That shifts the debate about in-store cameras from whether a location is recorded to how recordings are analyzed and used to judge the people working there, and it puts privacy and labor practices at the center of the sales conversation.
What’s next
Watch whether Meadow names customers, publishes its privacy and consent practices, and reaches the further fivefold growth it projects over the next twelve months, according to the report. Early chain deployments will show whether operators treat the tool as coaching or as surveillance.
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