Why Diageo’s Partnership Makes eMenu an Investor’s Opportunity
The partnership between eMenu and Diageo is more than a commercial deal. It is a proof point that hospitality is ready to become a retail media channel in its own right. For investors, it shows that a model once considered experimental is already live, influencing consumer choice and backed by the world’s most powerful beverage companies. Since launching with Diageo, Carlsberg Britvic are the second large powerhouse to come onboard and many others are in plan including Coca-Cola and Heineken.
Why Diageo Moved First
Diageo is not in the habit of backing unproven platforms. It saw in eMenu a way to place its brands directly inside the ordering journey on digital menus, tills and payment flows, and to measure the impact in real time.
For Diageo, that means visibility. It can see where a campaign ran, how many guests saw it, and how many drinks were ordered as a result. Early campaigns have delivered uplifts of 20 to 50 percent for featured products. That kind of closed-loop attribution is almost impossible to achieve through posters on a wall or a sponsorship deal.
For eMenu, having a FTSE 100 partner is more than revenue. It is validation that the platform changes behaviour and that global suppliers view it as a strategic channel.
The Triple Win
The partnership works because it benefits everyone involved.
Venues get modern ordering and payments without ripping out their existing tills. In most cases the system can be live in a single day. On top of that, they gain a new income stream through brand campaigns, helping offset rising costs in a tough trading environment. For many, the platform pays for itself.
Brands finally have a scalable way to influence choice inside pubs, hotels and restaurants. They can launch campaigns across thousands of venues in days, not months, and track performance down to the receipt.
Guests experience relevant and timely suggestions that feel more like service than advertising. A digital menu that highlights a seasonal cocktail or food pairing enhances the visit rather than intruding on it.
When each group wins, adoption accelerates.
Momentum in the Market
The results are already visible. eMenu is live across pubs, hotels and transport hubs with partners including Marriott, Punch Pubs and Arriva. Revenues have grown more than 100 percent year on year. The company has backing from Innovate UK and a group of respected investors including Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Piers Linney and directors from Currency Cloud, Casual Dining Group and UK Hospitality (the UK’s largest hospitality association).
eMenu has moved well past the experimental stage, with paying customers, clear sales uplift and validation from blue-chip partners.
Why the Model Scales
The beauty of the model is that once a venue is live, every additional campaign has almost no marginal cost. A new promotion can be rolled out overnight, creating fresh revenue for the platform, the venue and the brand without new hardware or lengthy installation.
Each campaign also generates data: which products sell, in which type of venue, at what time of day. That insight is hugely valuable for suppliers, who have never before had such granular visibility inside hospitality. With every campaign, eMenu’s data advantage compounds.
The more venues that join, the more attractive the platform becomes to brands. The more brands invest, the more venues want to sign up. This network effect is already in motion, and the speed of deployment, one day on legacy tills, makes scaling across thousands of venues achievable.
What Makes It Defensible
Competitors can mimic surface features, but several factors make eMenu hard to replicate:
Coverage — building the widest network of venues in a fragmented industry.
Context — influencing choices at the exact moment of order, where decisions are made.
Integration — the only solution that plugs into any infrastructure
Evidence — a growing track record of measurable sales uplifts, trusted by global brands gives eMenu the early mover advantage.
This combination creates stickiness for venues and credibility for advertisers. It is a moat that strengthens with every rollout.
The Road to Scale
For investors, the path ahead is clear. The immediate focus is expansion across the UK and Europe, building density in pubs, hotels and transport hubs. Every venue added increases the network’s value and drives more brand demand.
The long-term opportunity is global. The dynamics of hospitality are the same in New York, Singapore or Madrid as they are in London. The platform is hardware-agnostic and already proven to integrate with legacy systems, meaning international rollout can move quickly once anchor partners are secured.
The Bigger Vision
The ultimate prize is to build the advertising infrastructure for hospitality worldwide. Amazon, Google and Meta built trillion-dollar businesses by monetising consumer attention in retail and search. Hospitality has been overlooked, despite representing half of global beverage sales.
eMenu’s vision is to change that. By turning everyday menus and tills into a connected media network, it is creating a new commercial layer for an industry worth hundreds of billions. With Diageo as a partner, a proven record of sales uplift and a model that combines the stickiness of software with the margins of media, eMenu is positioned to lead this new category.
Conclusion
The Diageo eMenu partnership shows that hospitality can operate as a retail media channel with scale, measurement and results. It validates the model, reduces risk, and signals that mainstream adoption has begun.
For investors, the opportunity is compelling:
A vast, under-monetised market.
Early proof of traction and blue-chip validation.
A scalable model with attractive margins.
Multiple natural exit routes.
eMenu is creating the media layer for hospitality, turning everyday menus and tills into a network that reaches millions of consumers. With the category still being defined, this is the moment to invest.
