About Burnt
Built by the industry, for the industry
Food distribution is essential to how the world eats, but it runs on tools from decades ago. We're fourth-generation food operators who've lived the chaos—and we're building the AI that finally fixes it.
We speak the language of food distribution
“The food world doesn't run on clean logic or perfect systems. It runs on relationships, habits, shortcuts, exceptions and decades of unwritten rules. As founders who grew up in and around this industry, we've seen those nuances firsthand.”
- JJ, (Co-founder + CEO)
“Burnt exists to turn those "illogical" realities into software that understands the way the industry truly operates—not how a tech company wishes it did. We bridge the gap between messy real-world workflows and intelligent automation that fits seamlessly into them.”
- Rhea, (Co-founder + CPO)
The story behind Burnt
Born into food
Food has always been in our blood
JJ is a fourth-generation food entrepreneur who started his career on shrimp factory floors. Rhea comes from three generations of spice traders and grew up watching restaurant operations scale from a single pizza shop to a 20-location empire.
Growing up together
Two families, one mission
JJ and Rhea met when they were 12—their families ran restaurants together in Dubai. They watched that business grow from nothing into a major restaurant group, seeing firsthand how hard operations become as you scale.
Seeing the problem everywhere
An industry stuck in the past
Across JJ’s career—from restaurants, to food importers, to farms—he saw firsthand how deeply inefficient the food supply chain had become, and how much legacy software was holding the industry back. Teams were managing inventory across hundreds of Excel sheets, running factory production on pen and paper, and operating workflows decades behind where they needed to be.
Building the solution
From problem to platform
In 2023, Rhea and JJ brought in Chandru as CTO and founded Burnt. Backed by some of the best AI investors, they're reinventing the technical infrastructure of of supply chain and building AI that the food supply chain has needed for decades.
We build where the work happens
We don't build from a conference room in San Francisco. We spend weeks on-site at distribution facilities—watching orders come in, sitting with procurement teams, understanding the rhythm of daily operations. Our agents are built alongside customers, not in isolation, which means they handle the real complexity of food distribution from day one.
Built from real workflows, not generic templates
Tested in actual distribution environments
Refined based on operator feedback
Meet the founders
JJ
Co-Founder & CEO
Fourth-generation seafood supplier turned tech builder. Scaled food + tech operations globally. Specializes in over-engineering dinner. Signature dish: 36-hour duck leg confit.
Rhea
Co-Founder & CPO
Third-generation food operator with roots in spice farming and trade. Turns industry nuance into beautifully designed, intuitive software. Handles plating and delivers the verdict.
Chandru
Co-Founder & CTO
Built his first ERP at 17 for his family’s printing press. Solves complex problems with clean, elegant engineering. A mean cook with a soft spot for South Indian classics.
The principles that drive everything we do
Built by operators, for operators
We're not outsiders trying to fix an industry we don't understand. We've lived these problems, and we build solutions that actually work for the people who use them.
Customer obsession
We sit in our customers' facilities, learn their workflows, and build alongside them. The best products come from understanding what people actually need—not what we think they need.
Move fast, stay focused
We're a small team building something big. We iterate quickly, ship constantly, and stay ruthlessly focused on what matters most: automating the manual work that holds distributors back.
Full ownership
Everyone owns their work completely. No bureaucracy, no red tape—just smart people building great products and taking full responsibility for the results.