Cuboh

Overview

Cuboh replaced the delivery corner of a restaurant with one screen. Instead of training staff on a row of tablets, retyping each order into the point of sale, and updating every app when an item sold out, a restaurant could manage those jobs in one place.

The company began in Victoria in 2018, joined Y Combinator in 2019, raised at least C$1.6 million in its seed round, and reached about 2,000 restaurant customers. ChowNow bought Cuboh in March 2024 for an undisclosed amount. All thirty employees moved to the buyer, and founder Juan Orrego became general manager of ChowNow's Canadian business.^[1]

Evidence points to a voluntary strategic sale. Orrego said Cuboh had not been seeking a buyer and did not need to accept the offer. Order aggregation had become more valuable inside a suite that also owned direct ordering, delivery, marketing, and customer relationships. Cuboh survived as product and engineering capability; it stopped being an independent company.

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Founding Story

Juan Orrego was born in Colombia and moved to Victoria at seventeen. He grew up around small business and sold ice cream door to door as a child. The formal start of Cuboh came from a setback: he was fired from the internship he needed to graduate from the University of Victoria. The school let him satisfy the work term by employing himself in a new company.^[2]

His first product analyzed restaurant data. Owners did not buy it. One restaurant offered a better problem: delivery orders were arriving on separate tablets, staff had to type them into the POS, and menu changes had to be repeated on every marketplace. Orrego called ten other restaurants after the conversation. Two prepaid before he had built anything.

He did not know how to write software. Orrego later said he spent early mornings learning to code for six months and needed about seven months to produce a stable version. The first attempt was replaced before the public launch. Sinan Sari, who had worked at Just Eat and had a technical background, joined as co-founder.^[3]

The founders described immigrant entrepreneurship as a network problem as much as a product problem. They lacked ready access to investors and experienced operators. Orrego repeatedly asked a former employer, James, for help until he became Cuboh's first investor. YC then supplied a concentrated network and a credibility signal.

Timeline

• 2018: Orrego and Sari launch Cuboh in Victoria after pre-selling the concept to restaurants.
• Summer 2019: Cuboh joins Y Combinator.
• 2020: The company announces an oversubscribed C$1.6 million seed round and says it serves more than 1,000 restaurant locations.^[4]
• 2020-2021: Pandemic restrictions drive restaurants toward delivery. Cuboh expands as operators add marketplace volume.
• January 2022: Cuboh reports more than sixty employees and plans new products and overseas expansion.
• January 2023: Forbes reports that the company has raised $4 million.^[5]
• March 28, 2024: ChowNow acquires Cuboh. The thirty-person team joins the buyer.
• September 2024: Orrego says ChowNow approached Cuboh after three or four years as a partner and that the sale was voluntary.
• 2026: ChowNow describes Cuboh's engineering systems as integrated while product work continues.^[6]

What They Built

Cuboh's core product sat between order channels and restaurant systems. Orders from delivery marketplaces and direct channels arrived in one interface, then moved into the restaurant's POS or kitchen printer. Staff could accept orders, manage preparation, and correct errors without switching tablets.