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Zest Raises $1.8 Million To Build AI-Powered Restaurant Discovery Platform

by THEFUTURE.TEAM

June 11, 2026

Innovative Approach To Restaurant Discovery

Restaurant discovery startup Zest is using transaction data and artificial intelligence to generate dining recommendations based on users’ actual spending habits rather than reviews or saved wishlists. Founded in November 2024, the company aims to help users discover restaurants through verified dining activity and personalized recommendations.

Strategic Funding And Early Adoption

Founded in November 2024, Zest has rapidly captured market attention with $1.8 million in pre‐seed funding from notable investors, including Alexis Ohanian via 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures. The platform, which has been in beta since inception, expanded its user base steadily from a circle of friends and family to a broader audience, garnering over 100,000 visits in a matter of weeks post-launch.

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Data-Driven Personalization In Action

Unlike other apps that simply compile dining wishlists, Zest’s distinctive advantage lies in its reliance on verifiable transaction data. By linking a user’s credit card to the platform, Zest imports verified dining transactions to create a personalized map of favorite eateries. This transparent method extends beyond curated posts, instead offering recommendations based on the frequency and monetary investment users commit to their chosen spots.

Leveraging Trusted Financial Partnerships

Zest integrates data through Plaid, a leading financial services provider trusted by major banks and fintech innovators. This partnership ensures that only dining-related transactions are extracted, improving the accuracy of its personalized mapping while preserving user privacy and data integrity.

Curating The Authentic Dining Experience

Co-founder Mario Gomez-Hall emphasizes the platform’s focus on genuine dining experiences over ostentatious social sharing. “It’s about uncovering your regular spots, the dependable ‘hole in the wall’ you love, not just the high-end, Michelin-rated restaurants,” he explains. With the combined technical expertise of co-founder Alex Moller, whose background includes Apple and other tech giants, Zest is poised to set a new standard in authentic dining exploration.

Expanding The Culinary Landscape

Alongside transaction-based recommendations, Zest analyses more than 80 million reviews from multiple sources, including Michelin and Reddit. The startup is also introducing new features that allow users to save personal notes about restaurants and share recommendations. A new “Fresh Picks” feature will highlight recently discovered restaurants in a format similar to Spotify’s Discovery Weekly.

Beyond Restaurants: A Vision For Urban Exploration

The company plans to expand beyond restaurant recommendations and explore additional categories of local experiences, including shopping and nightlife. According to Gomez-Hall, the long-term goal is to build a broader discovery platform focused on helping users navigate cities through personalized recommendations.

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Mirendil Signs $100 Million Google Cloud Deal To Advance Self-Improving AI

by News Editor

August 6, 2026

AI startup Mirendil has signed a multi-year agreement worth more than $100 million with Google Cloud to secure computing infrastructure for its self-improving AI research.

The partnership reflects growing competition among AI companies to lock in access to high-performance computing, while cloud providers race to attract promising startups developing next-generation AI models.

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Backing The Next Stage Of AI Research

Mirendil plans to use Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), Nvidia GPUs and managed training infrastructure to develop AI systems capable of improving their own performance over time.

Known as recursive self-improvement, the concept focuses on building AI that can refine its knowledge and capabilities with minimal human intervention. The technology is attracting growing interest across the industry, with several startups and leading AI labs exploring similar approaches.

According to co-founder and Chief Executive Behnam Neyshabur, the long-term goal is to develop AI that can automate scientific research and accelerate discoveries in fields such as medicine, biology and materials science.

Compute Capacity Becomes A Strategic Asset

Training increasingly advanced AI models requires enormous computing resources, making long-term infrastructure agreements a critical competitive advantage.

Mirendil said Google’s combination of TPUs and GPUs allows workloads to be matched with the most suitable hardware, improving efficiency while reducing costs for customers.

For Google Cloud, the agreement strengthens its position in the race to provide infrastructure for frontier AI developers, while giving the company exposure to one of the industry’s emerging approaches to next-generation artificial intelligence.