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About Karamu

We’re building the operating system for African hospitality.

The pilot is open, from Nairobi — building the tool we always wished our restaurants had, and onboarding our first restaurants by hand.

Karamu
/kɑːˈrɑːmuː/ · noun · Swahili

A feast. The full house — food going out fast, music, conversation, regulars at their usual table. The night every restaurant is chasing.

How it started

How it started

Karamu began with a simple frustration: every great restaurant we knew was running on a tangle of OpenTable, WhatsApp groups, paper notebooks and spreadsheets — and none of it fit.

The answer was always the same: nothing fits.

The global tools don’t take M-Pesa, don’t understand walk-in culture, and were designed for a New York bistro — not a Nairobi rooftop. The local tools were either too basic or built for one big chain.

So we’re building Karamu — the operating system we wished we had. The pilot is open: we’re onboarding our first 50 restaurants ourselves, and shipping in the open. The goal is simple: make the feast possible for every restaurant between Cairo and Cape Town.

What we believe

Four things we won’t compromise on.

  • Warm, not corporate

    A trusted advisor, not a software vendor. You get a founder on the phone, not a ticket queue.

  • Plain language

    No jargon. “See your busiest hours,” never “leverage analytics insights.”

  • Honest about what we ship

    A public roadmap. We say what is live, what is coming, and what is not. No vapourware.

  • Your money, your data

    Deposits settle to your till. Your guest list exports anytime. We earn the renewal every month.

The team

The people building Karamu.

We’re a small team — full introductions land as the pilot grows.

  • Engineering

    Introductions soon

    Building the product — and answering the pilot emails.

  • Operations

    Introductions soon

    Front of house to back office — making sure Karamu fits a real Friday rush.

  • Hospitality

    Introductions soon

    A kitchen’s-eye view — keeping Karamu true to how service actually works.

Pilot open
Building from Nairobi
First 50
Pilot restaurants, onboarded by hand
Q3 2026
MVP shipping
Join the pilot

Want to build it with us?

We’re onboarding our first restaurants by hand. If you run a place, we’d love to hear from you.