Now Book It invests $5M in Apero, an AI reservation platform whose 24/7 receptionist answers restaurant calls in French or English.

Every restaurant knows the moment. The dining room is full, the kitchen is sending out plates, and the phone at the host stand starts ringing. Someone has to choose between the guest in front of them and the guest trying to book a table for Saturday, and either way the restaurant loses a little. Calls go unanswered, reservations go elsewhere, and the details that matter, an allergy or an anniversary, get lost somewhere between a sticky note and the floor plan.

The usual answers to that problem tend to create new ones. Booking marketplaces can fill tables, but they sit between the restaurant and its own guests. Standalone chatbots can hold a conversation, but they are not connected to the book, so someone still has to re-enter what was promised. In Québec there is one more requirement on top: the call has to work in French and in English.

Within Valsoft's portfolio, Now Book It, a restaurant reservation technology company established in 2015 that serves thousands of hospitality venues, has made a Series A investment of $5M in Apero, an AI-powered reservation platform built specifically for Québec restaurants. The investment is part of the Valsoft Venture Program, which supports new AI software businesses built within the Valsoft ecosystem. Apero brings online reservations, live floor plans, waitlists, guest profiles, group and event management and no-show prevention into one platform, with a 24/7 AI receptionist at its centre.

The receptionist answers calls in French or English, takes, modifies and cancels reservations, answers common questions about opening hours, parking, the menu or large-party policies, notes allergies and special occasions, and confirms bookings by text. Because it works directly with the restaurant's availability and booking rules, a reservation taken over the phone lands in the same system as one made online. There is one source of truth, and nobody has to copy anything over at the end of the night.

What sets Apero apart is what it chooses not to do. It is not a consumer marketplace that promotes competing restaurants to a venue's own guests, so the restaurant keeps its guest relationships and its data. It runs on a flat monthly subscription with no per-reservation or per-cover fees, so a busier book does not mean a bigger software bill. That is what applying AI as an operational capability looks like inside the Valsoft portfolio: taking a repetitive task off a team in the middle of service, while leaving the hospitality to the people in the room.

Read the full announcement here and see how Apero works on Apero's site.