Fourth
“Can a restaurant workforce+inventory platform become the financial operating system for hospitality by embedding payroll, on-demand pay, and tip payouts?”
Founded1999
HQAustin, Texas, United States
IndustryVertical SaaS / Restaurants
The story
Fourth began as two 1999-era hospitality-tech companies (Fourth in the UK, HotSchedules in the US) that merged in 2019 under Marlin Equity Partners ownership. The combined business is a restaurant/hospitality vertical SaaS spanning workforce management, HR & payroll, inventory, and analytics — with embedded finance layered in via a UK BACS payroll bureau, earned wage access via Wagestream, and a US subsidiary (Fourth Fintech Solutions, LLC) registered as an NMLS money-services entity signaling a broader fintech ambition.
Last 12 months
—
Product timeline
1999
Fourth and HotSchedules founded as separate companies serving restaurant/hospitality on two continents.· founding
2019
Fourth and HotSchedules merged to form combined workforce + inventory platform.· acquisition
2025
Launched Fourth iQ AI-powered forecasting/operating platform.· product
Acquisitions
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Fourth
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
2 layers disclosed in Fourth’s embedded-finance stack
Payroll
Finastra
KYC
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
1 more provider across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.