Restworld

Luca Lotario was studying psychology with a focus on human resources while working as a waiter in various Italian restaurants to pay for his studies. When it came time to write his thesis, he chose an obvious topic: how to improve recruiting in the hospitality industry. "Talking with the restaurants, they started to ask us if we were able to help them to find stuff," Luca recalls. Though just a student with no recruiting expertise, he and a friend decided to try as a "game," offering freelance recruiting services to restaurants they knew.

What started as a side hustle between two psychology students quickly evolved when they met two engineers—an IT engineer and a management engineer—who shared their vision. Together, the four co-founders launched Restworld in February 2020, just one week before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down restaurants across Europe. "So we spent our first six months without any market," Luca notes. Despite the brutal timing, they began generating revenue during the alpha phase in early 2021. Rather than building a self-service SaaS tool, they created what Luca calls "Recruiting as a Service" (RAS)—restaurants pay a monthly subscription and get dedicated customer success managers who handle the entire hiring process, matching workers with employers.

The founding team's restaurant industry connections were invaluable. Luca had worked in multiple restaurants during his studies, and his thesis work had given him credibility with restaurant owners. They raised their first capital—42,000 euros—directly from restaurant owners who believed in the model. "I love that you're raising money directly from your customer," Nathan Latka noted. This bootstrap-friendly, customer-funded approach became their hallmark, raising 100,000 euros in 2021 and 250,000 euros in 2022.

Restworld's growth strategy centers on Meta advertising (Facebook/Instagram ads), which they've optimized ruthlessly. With a cost per lead of just 3-4 euros and a conversion rate of roughly 1 in 5, their customer acquisition cost lands under 100 euros—and customers pay 350 euros per month on average, meaning they break even in the first month. "In the first month we have already the money back," Luca explains. The model requires scaling carefully though: for every new customer, they must hire additional customer success managers to manage the relationship and hiring process. This creates a predictable, though labor-intensive, growth cycle.

Churn is the elephant in the room. Restworld operates in an industry with notoriously high turnover—restaurants fail, and staff needs fluctuate. Monthly churn hits 30%, though annualized it drops to 10-15% because restaurants that cancel typically return within 2-4 months when they need to hire again. Luca calls this an "exact charge rate"—customers aren't leaving permanently; they're pausing and coming back.

One year after hitting 8,000 euros in monthly revenue, Restworld is at 33,000 euros—a 4x increase. They've grown to 12 team members (including three engineers and two co-founders) and are closing a 265,000 euro seed round at a 3.2 million euro post-money valuation, with investors owning 20% and the four founders splitting the remaining 80% evenly. They're targeting the sweet spot: restaurants with 1-20 employees who desperately need hiring help but can't afford traditional recruiters. With 95 active customers at an average of 350 euros per month and a clear unit economics advantage, Restworld is proving that even in a high-churn industry, a service-first approach can scale profitably.