It's called Bestie Bite and it's the all-Italian app dedicated to video reviews in the hospitality sector. The company has closed a new €1.5 million funding round, subscribed via the SAFE platform and led by the Grassi family through their family holding company G&G, a shareholder of E80 Group of Viano, in the province of Reggio Emilia.

On the consumer side, Bestie Bite is an app that learns what customers like and what they're looking for: it uses AI to guide customers, through videos, towards the most appropriate restaurant, café, and hotel selections more quickly and with greater confidence. Unlike traditional reviews, each piece of content is based on verification standards and authenticity rules (authentication, fraud detection, and AI video detection): the result is a community where people can trust what they see. Reinforcing this virtuous cycle is gamification, with a cashback system that rewards those who contribute authentic videos.

On the business side, Bestie Bite introduces the hospitality industry's first "AI Marketing employee": artificial intelligence replaces social media managers and marketing agencies. Essentially, an "authentic" video created by the Bestie Bite community generates an entire editorial plan for the following month and automatically publishes it on the venue's channels.

Bestie Bite boasts over 100,000 users reached and more than 120,000 videos uploaded in over 80 countries worldwide. Among the first structured use cases is Pescaria, the first seafood fast food restaurant in Italy that uses the platform to obtain reusable video content and continuous customer experience analysis.

The additional capital, raised in less than four months from the initial €700,000 round, brings the total raised to €2.2 million. The funds will be used to support the company's consolidation in Italy and its expansion into the US market, with a new base in San Francisco.

Bestie Bite is led by co-founders Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo , CEO, and Caterina Vertefeuille , COO, both second-time founders with solid experience in the hospitality sector. In addition to the founders, the team includes Placido Falqueto , CTO (Software Engineer with a PhD in AI and Robotics).

"We want to revolutionize this market," the two co-founders commented. "Authenticity is the most precious and scarce commodity on the web: we are building a new standard and a technological layer that brings the full power of artificial intelligence to restaurants, always starting with authentic content. With this round, we are accelerating our expansion from Italy to the United States to make it the global standard."