Ottimate
“Can an AI-first AP automation platform, born in restaurants, become the profitability copilot for every CFO across verticals?”
Founded 2014 as Plate IQ, a restaurant-focused AP automation tool that specialized in capturing line-item invoice detail from tomato-stained paper invoices. Raised $160M from FTV Capital in 2021, then rebranded to Ottimate in 2024 to broaden its market beyond restaurants into hospitality, healthcare, grocery, retail, construction, and manufacturing. The company has increasingly leaned into AI (Copilot, MCP integrations with Claude/ChatGPT) as its core differentiator, positioning itself as an 'AI copilot for AP' rather than pure workflow automation. In 2026 it migrated its VendorPay payment rails from Dwolla to Stripe — a significant infrastructure upgrade signaling a push toward more scalable embedded payments.