Meitre

Overview

Meitre was a B2B restaurant revenue-management platform founded in 2017 by Uruguayan brothers Juan and Luis Caviglia. Accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2018 batch, the company positioned itself as "OpenTable for the world's top restaurants"—an algorithm-driven system that optimized table allocation, shifted demand from peak to slow hours, and eliminated no-shows through deposits and credit card guarantees.^[1][3] By mid-2019, Meitre had 100+ restaurants across 10 countries and a $1.6M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with former OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan participating.^[4]

Meitre's defining strategic choice was to complement rather than compete with incumbent reservation systems—working alongside OpenTable instead of replacing it. That decision left the company with no proprietary distribution, no pricing power, and a thin seed round that proved insufficient when COVID-19 erased restaurant demand. The company never raised follow-on funding, pivoted to a consumer membership club in 2020, and ultimately transformed into Ritual at Manresa, a niche high-end culinary club in California—a far cry from the "OpenTable for the world's top restaurants" ambition.

The company never formally shut down and remains listed as "Active" on Y Combinator's site, but its product has entirely shifted from B2B software to consumer access.^[15] The Caviglias found a more viable business in curated access to exclusive dining than in selling software to restaurants.

Founding Story

Juan and Luis Caviglia grew up in Uruguay and "earned their first dollars out of a shared computer they had in their bedroom during the late 90s."^[21] The brothers had been building internet businesses for nearly two decades before Meitre, though details of their ventures between the late 1990s and 2017 remain sparse. What's clear is that by 2017, they had identified a specific problem in high-end dining: restaurants were leaving money on the table through suboptimal table allocation and no-show losses.

The founding insight was operational, not consumer-facing. High-end restaurants faced a demand-management problem—peak hours were oversubscribed while slow hours sat empty, and no-shows cost them significant revenue. Meitre's algorithm would analyze historical reservation data to predict demand and automatically shift bookings from peak to slow periods. As Luis Caviglia explained: "If there is a lot of demand on Fridays from 7 to 9 PM, the model works to see how to move part of that demand earlier or later automatically. It opens spaces in slow hours and reserves what it knows will fill during prime time."^[9]

The brothers applied to Y Combinator and were accepted into the Winter 2018 batch, moving to Palo Alto with a 9-person team.^[22] Juan's YC profile describes him as "Smiles millionaire"—a characteristically self-deprecating touch that hints at the brothers' personality-driven approach to building.^[23]

The strategic decision to complement rather than compete was explicit from the start. Juan Caviglia told LatAm List: "We don't substitute reservation platforms, rather we work with them to optimize the market, similar to platforms in the hospitality industry."^[6] This positioning avoided head-on competition with OpenTable but would prove to be the company's structural weakness.

Timeline

• 2017: Meitre founded by Juan and Luis Caviglia in Uruguay.^[0]
• January 2018: Meitre participates in Y Combinator's Winter 2018 batch; founders move to Palo Alto.^[1]
• May 2019: Meitre raises $1.6M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Jeff Jordan (former OpenTable CEO) participating.^[4]
• June 2019: Meitre reports 100+ restaurants, presence in 10 countries, and offices in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru.^[7]
• May 2020: Caviglia brothers launch the Stellar Collective, a restaurant membership club, in response to COVID-19.^[10]
• 2021: Caviglia brothers co-found Ritual at Manresa, a culinary members club in California.^[13]
• December 2023: Ritual at Manresa operates with 48 guests per night, five nights a week, tickets from $450.^[19]
• July 2026: Meitre's total disclosed funding remains $1.6M; current website operates as a consumer booking platform for 91 restaurants.^[27][18]