A new partnership with IBM Watson is bringing supercomputing analytics capabilities to Raleigh startup Stealz’ capabilities for delivering real-time customer feedback to its more than 1,000 paying clients. Stealz will be telling its story about revolutionizing business-to-customer relationships at CED’s Tech Venture conference.

“We serve over 1,000 paying clients and work with several big name brands like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Applebee’s, Bojangles’, Zaxby’s, Anytime Fitness, Dave & Buster’s, IMAX Theatres and more,” says Stealz CEO Jim Zidar.

“With the recent Watson integration and simultaneous expansion of our existing beacon technology, our product will continue to develop and surpass existing feedback collection, guest engagement and digital marketing tools in the market.”

Stealze has raised some $1 million from investors.

This profile is the latest in a series of CED Tech Venture presenting companies which is the result of a partnership between WRAL TechWire and the CED.

The Stealze Q&A:

  • What is the focus of your business?

Stealz has developed a social media engagement tool for businesses in the form of a consumer-facing mobile application and corresponding SaaS platform. Our technology helps client businesses turn their customers into brand ambassadors by enabling and incentivizing them to share photos on social media with their friends. Likewise, customers can use the Stealz app to leave candid feedback for the business’s management team about their experience.

In return, customers get points that they can cash in for exclusive rewards. Our client businesses enjoy access to a host of valuable customer data and app activity metrics on our robust Analytics Dashboard, enabling them to better understand their guests’ buying behaviors and more.

Stealz is revolutionizing the way businesses engage with, and get value from their customers, and vice versa.

  • What is the top pain point/business application you are seeking to address?

Stealz is focused on solving two primary pain points for our client businesses. First, we seek to alleviate the many challenges of paid social media advertising. Stealz allows businesses to seamlessly encourage guests to promote their business to their friends and family by sharing their positive experience on social media. Research shows consumers are about 10x more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend than a brand’s paid advertisement. Stealz uses social media to help brands take that trusted, organic word-of-mouth marketing to the next level.

Stealz addresses another major pain point for restaurants and like-businesses: guest feedback collection. Most current solutions in the market are web-based, making them a bit outdated and a challenge in terms of garnering high guest participation rates. Stealz solves this primarily by offering a mobile platform for guests to leave feedback; however our technology also allows us to deliver real-time alerts to management teams to aid in customer recovery efforts.

  • What makes it unique?

Stealz is unique in that we’re really the only customer engagement/“loyalty”-related platform in the market that uses social media to drive C2C marketing and leverages mobile to collect guest feedback. Most brand-specific mobile applications for restaurants/entertainment venues focus on generic loyalty, mobile ordering, mobile payment, etc. Stealz breaks the mold by actively helping businesses increase both customer acquisition and retention, all while collecting valuable, actionable customer data.

Stealz also utilizes several cutting-edge technologies that set our product apart from other mobile apps and SaaS platforms in our space. Stealz has been using beacon technology for almost 3 years, and we recently landed a partnership with IBM Watson to incorporate cognitive machine learning (CML) as means of expanding our backend data engine capabilities; specifically, how we digest and report on customer feedback in a business’s Dashboard.

  • Why should investors be interested in your firm?

Stealz is truly disrupting the restaurant space in the way our technology facilitates dynamic engagement between businesses and their customers.

We serve over 1,000 paying clients and work with several big name brands like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Applebee’s, Bojangles’, Zaxby’s, Anytime Fitness, Dave & Buster’s, IMAX Theatres and more.

With the recent Watson integration and simultaneous expansion of our existing beacon technology, our product will continue to develop and surpass existing feedback collection, guest engagement and digital marketing tools in the market.

Business facts:

  • Website – www.getstealz.com
  • Email address for inquiries – jody@getstealz.com (Press), jim@getstealz.com (Investors)
  • Physical address – 310 S Harrington St. Raleigh, NC 27603
  • CEO’s name – Jim Zidar
  • ​Watch overview video about Stealz at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3q8DGJSYfo