Apr 23, 2025 · 34m · the-pitch
This Startup Solves a Billion-Dollar Problem in Restaurants with AI – Will It Get Funded?
Luisa Castellanos · 12m spoken Jesse Middleton · 4m spoken Josh Muccio · 3m spoken Andy Rosenband · 2m spoken Mark Phillips · 2m spoken Paige Finn Doherty · 2m spoken Will Wiseman · 1m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
On this episode of The Pitch, Science on Call co-founder Luisa Castellanos seeks a $2 million investment for an AI-powered tech support platform built for restaurant operators. While the pitch generates multiple soft commitments in the room, shifting investor dynamics and diligence scrutiny over software automation margins lead to unexpected post-pitch outcomes.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 13.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 4.4 Guest teaching 2.2 Guest disagreement 0.4 Josh pushing back 2.4
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:16 Founders flatly dismiss dashboard assumption
Luisa directly counters Paige's suggestion that restaurant operators want analytical dashboards, insisting operators actively reject them in favor of simple action.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 23:36 Josh confronts investors over valuation passivityJosh aggressively grills the VC panel on why none of them pushed back on the founder throwing out a $20M valuation expectation.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:20 Educating panel on restaurant operator realitiesLuisa educates the panel on restaurant psychology, explaining that operators lack the time to analyze data and need direct operational problem solving instead.
Josh holds their own ▶ 31:41 Host analyzes OpEx vs revenue scaling bottleneckJosh breaks down the exact financial reason the deal collapsed during diligence, citing that past revenue growth was driven by headcount rather than pure software leverage.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing the Venture Capitalist Panel | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Josh introduces the panel and Luisa delivers her opening pitch smoothly, sharing stats on restaurant turnover (59 days) and current traction without friction. | |
| Live Automation Demo and POS Integrations | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Jesse and Will ask technical questions regarding integrations with Toast and other POS systems; Luisa explains their proprietary RPA automation workflows. | |
| Target Customer Profile and Feature Expansion | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Paige suggests larger chains want admin dashboards, but Luisa directly educates her that restaurant operators hate dashboards and just want automated execution. | |
| Unit Economics, Pricing Modules, and Sales Channels | 4 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Jesse and Will probe on pricing tiers and customer acquisition methods, while Luisa outlines their modules and relationship-based sales motion. | |
| Churn Dynamics, Five-Year Vision, and Round Structure | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Investors examine churn metrics and long-term targets of $125M ARR; Jesse raises skepticism about whether operational tech support can scale without commoditization. | |
| Valuation Discussion and Investor Commitments | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | Luisa discloses a $20M cap target; Mark and Paige offer soft commitments and diligence calls while acknowledging the high price point. | |
| Post-Pitch Investor Deliberations | 6 | 1 | 0 | 7 | Host Josh immediately pushes back on the investors for letting Luisa walk without challenging her high valuation number or international assumptions. | |
| Post-Show Diligence Updates and Dropouts | 4 | 2 | 0 | 3 | Post-show diligence call with Mark Phillips where co-founder Andy explains their growth history, burn rate, and automation roadmap. | |
| Final Investment Decision and Host's Counter-Bet | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Josh narrates Mark's decision to pass due to headcount-driven OpEx growth, and explains his own analytical counter-thesis based on data room metrics. |
Statements from this episode (30)
Castellanos: Average restaurant employee turnover is roughly 59 days
“The average restaurant employee sticks around for about 59 days.”
Castellanos: Science on Call nears $2M ARR across 900 US restaurants
“We are approaching about two million in ARR this year, and we're in about 900 restaurant locations all across the US.”
Castellanos: Science on Call expects 85% gross margins by next year
“We are currently at about 70% gross margins, and by starting to automate more problems, we expect this to get up to about 85% by the end of next year.”
Castellanos: Two-person sales team generated $1.3M in new revenue last year
“Our sales team consists of my co-founder Andy and one account executive who've closed about 1.3 million in new revenue last year.”
Castellanos: Science on Call is raising a $2M velocity round
“And so right now we're raising a two million dollar velocity round to continue to invest in our go to market strategy as well as automating more problems for restaurants.”
Castellanos: Science On Call automates across Olo, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub
“We're also automating in Olo, as well as DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, most of the common ones.”
Castellanos: Science On Call is only company automating in Toast POS
“So as far as we know, we're actually the only people automating processes and in toast right now”
Science on Call focuses on restaurant operators with 20 to 150 locations
“So our focus right now is on operators with between 20 and a 150 locations, but we are actually getting interest from larger operators, 508 hundred, a thousand unit operators.”
Castellanos: Restaurant operators want direct guidance, not more dashboards
“So you might think restaurant operators want more dashboards and analytics, but they do not. I will tell you that every time we've tried to offer it, they're just like, tell us what we need to do.”
Science on Call expands product into restaurant workforce management
“So we are actually starting to expand our product offering into more of a workforce management tool. So we actually just launched this like two days ago with one of our customers.”
Science On Call cuts 50-unit restaurant chains' IT headcount by two-thirds
“Some of our customers with 50 unit chains, they used to have three people in-house, and we were able to reduce them down to one person because we're much more cost-effective than.”
Science On Call full-tier pricing is about $379 monthly per location
“So if they're going all in, it's going to be about three 79 a month per location.”
Castellanos: About 80% of Science On Call revenue is automatable support
“But I think right now about 80% of our revenue is something that can either be automated or conversational troubleshooting.”
Castellanos: Door-to-door sales do not work for selling into restaurants
“So anyone who's sold into a restaurant knows going door to door does not work.”
Castellanos: Science on Call had 12% logo churn and 3% MRR churn
“So last year we did churn out a few of our independent operators, and so if you talk about logo churn, it was like, 12%. But a logo is a single location, so our MRR churn was like, three percent.”
Castellanos: Science on Call rolled out no-human-in-the-loop troubleshooting
“So in the last week we rolled out fully end to end conversational troubleshooting. So there is no human in the loop to respond to a text.”
Castellanos targets $125M ARR for Science on Call in five years
“Yeah, I think in the next five years we want to be at a hundred and twenty-five million in ARR, and that'll include going abroad to other countries, Europe and Latin America, as well as convenience stores and retail, and we want to be able to automate 80% of w…”
Castellanos: There are 175,000 mid-sized QSR locations in the market
“There are a 175,000 QSRs with 20 to a hundred locations, and so we've got a lot of market share left to get in restaurants first.”
Wiseman: Kitty Hawk passes on Science On Call due to deep-tech mandate
“It's not a fit for Kitty Hawk as a, more of a deep tech investor, but I'd love to be helpful.”
Castellanos: Science On Call net burn is around $100,000 per month
“Right now, net burn's like a hundred K.”
Middleton: Founders should never name the first number in negotiations
“I mean, if I'm advising anyone, like sales one-on-one, don't throw out the first number.”
Doherty: Behind Genius does not need lead investors but requires set terms
“I don't need a lead to build conviction, but I do need term set.”
Muccio: Jesse Middleton ghosted Science On Call after the pitch
“After the show, two calls and a ghosting. Jessie's the ghost. Jessie, check your email.”
Muccio: Paige Doherty passed on Science On Call for being too late stage
“After the call, Louisa said Paige passed because it wasn't a good fit for her thesis. Science on call was too late stage.”
Rosenband: Science On Call will reach $4M to $5.2M ARR in 2025
“We'll close out the year between four and five million ARR. I'm actually optimistic we'll be between 4.7 and 5.2, provided we make the right expenditures.”
Rosenband: Science On Call's team supports 4x more restaurants via AI
“So the 11 human beings that we had a year ago who are full time team members, like they can support four times the number of restaurants.”
Phillips: Firm targets lead positions with roughly $1M check size
“Where we are today from a fund perspective is we're really trying to take lead positions. And if we were to come in and the check size we're writing right now is probably about a million bucks into an opportunity like this.”
Muccio: Mark Phillips passes on Science on Call after diligence
“So their team dug into the data room, and one week later, Mark told Louisa he would not be investing either, for a concrete reason.”