The $3m F&B tech comeback of Flash Coffee’s co-founder

Cata, the latest venture of Flash Coffee co-founder David Brunier, has emerged from stealth.

The new startup aims to gives food and beverage (F&B) players a fast track to building their own consumer app. Sebastian Hannecker, Flash Coffee’s ex-COO, and Marija Brunier, a former executive of Foodpanda and David’s wife, co-founded Cata.

Cata co-founders (from left) David Brunier, Sebastian Hannecker, and Marija Brunier / Photo credit: Cata

David, who serves as Cata’s CEO, tells Tech in Asia that the company has raised US$3.1 million from investors such as White Star Capital, FoodLabs, 468 Capital, FJ Labs, and Rally Cap.

When Flash Coffee opened in 2019, he wanted the Singapore-based chain to be digital-first. That meant giving customers a consumer app for ordering, payments, and loyalty rewards. But creating such a product turned out to be a massive task.

“We threw 120 engineers on it full time, plus product and design teams. It was a huge investment,” David recalls. But once the Flash Coffee app was launched, “large F&B chains started knocking on our door saying, can we buy this tech from you?”

This signaled a gap in the market that eventually led to the establishment of Cata in 2024. The Singapore-based startup builds white-label mobile apps for restaurants, cafés, and quick-service restaurant chains.

Through Cata, F&B businesses of any size can roll out a branded consumer app “within days” without needing an in-house tech team.

All-in-one solution

Cata’s launch comes more than a year after Flash Coffee filed for voluntary wind-up in Singapore, even as the coffee chain continues to operate and expand in Indonesia.

The company’s shutdown in Singapore reflects the struggles that many brick-and-mortar F&B businesses face – exactly what Cata is setting out to solve.

Photo credit: Flash Coffee

David describes Cata as a fully branded ecosystem for restaurants and retailers. The apps are designed to look and feel like those of global players’ such as Starbucks or McDonald’s, but they can be rolled out quickly and at far lower cost, he says.

“Everything is branded: your logo, your colors, your fonts. It’s your app, not a generic template,” the CEO explains.

Going beyond F&B