Beli (app)

Beli
Original authorsJudy Thelen
Eliot Frost
Initial release2021
PlatformiOS 16.6 or later
Android
Available inEnglish
Websitebeliapp.com

Beli is an American restaurant-focused social media app founded in 2021 by Judy Thelen and Eliot Frost. The platform allows users to track restaurants they have visited, rate dining experiences, and receive personalized restaurant recommendations.

History

Beli was founded in 2021 by Harvard Business School alumni Judy Thelen and Eliot Frost. The idea for the app originated from a Google Map the couple created to track restaurants they had visited together in New York City. The name "Beli" was derived from Frost's high school nickname.[1]

The founders began developing the product in 2019. A beta version launched shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,[2] with early development funded through entrepreneurship grants from Harvard..[3] Beli officially launched in the Apple App Store in June 2021.[1]

The app initially gained traction in major U.S. cities including New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. Its user base grew rapidly among Gen Z users, particularly in New York City.[4][5][6] According to Thelen and Frost, roughly 80 percent of the Beli's users are under 35.[6][7][6]

Thelen and Frost have declined to share data on daily active users.[6] In November 2023, Beli closed a $5.3 million Series A round from Goodwater Capital.[8] The company says it has raised $12 million as of June 2025, including from FirstMark Capital.[9]

The app has over 75 million total global reviews across 30,000 cities globally as of September 2025[10][9][11]

Features

At its launch, Beli was invite-only, before opening to the general public.[12] Users rank restaurants, bakeries, and other eateries on the Beli app, comparing individual establishments to others they have visited, as well as marking their favorite dishes and uploading photos of their meal.[13] The app calculates two scores for the establishment based on the user's rank, one predicting how much the user liked the restaurant and the other stating how much a user's friends on Beli liked the restaurant.[10][2] As users rate more restaurants, Beli's algorithm can connect it to other users with similar tastes and recommend particular places.[3] Thelen has said that Beli has "gamified ranking."[3] Profiles can be set to private or to public.[6] Like Letterboxd for movies, users can tag people they visited a particular business with and leave reviews for the public. According to users, the app encourages members to "try new foods, cuisines, and neighborhoods".[6] Thelen has argued that rather than a social media platform, Beli is a "social restaurant list-keeping app", but has also referred to Beli as a "social media company" in other interviews.[7][1]

Leaderboard

Beli features both city-specific and a platform-wide leaderboard, which users can move up and down on depending on how many places they rank. Users can still invite others onto the app, upon which they are able to access increased functionality and increase their leaderboard ranking.[12] Beli also encourages users to keep their "streak" alive.[6]

The app has also launched a Dining Hall of Fame competition among 187 participating universities to find the "foodiest university". College students can also participate in college-based leaderboards.[2]

Integration

Beli integrates with TikTok and Instagram, allowing users to add places from those platforms directly onto their "Want to Try" list on Beli, as well with certain online reservation-booking services, like OpenTable.[7][3][10] Beli can also connect to college ID cards.[2]

Beli Supper Club

After launching Beli, Thelen and Frost launched the Beli Supper Club, which The Wall Street Journal described as "an invite-only subscription service with a combination of in-person events and premium app features". The service requires a membership fee and is only available to users in New York City.[3]

Reception

Beli has been compared to other industry-specific social categorizing applications, including Strava, Yelp, Goodreads, and Letterboxd.[14][10] Emily Lichty of Today.com wrote that Beli is the "ultimate gamification of grabbing grub".[13] Journalists have focused on Beli's popularity amongst Gen Z users in particular. Sabrina Choudhary of Food Network referred to Beli as "Gen Z's Yelp," and Stephen Bradley wrote in Taste that the app "might be the most Gen Z–tailored dining-out resource yet".[10][6]

The app has received some criticism from users for focusing on elite restaurants and generating "unmerited buzz", as well as focusing on preserving their streaks rather than a more genuine interest.[6][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Harvard Business School Grads Behind Beli | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  2. ^ a b c d Lui, Andrea; Ng, Lauren (2023-10-16). "Why NYU students are obsessed with the Beli app — and why you should be too". Washington Square News. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  3. ^ a b c d e Druckman, Charlotte. "The App That Makes Rating Restaurants Fun Again—and Gets Better the More You Use It". WSJ. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  4. ^ Joy, Jill (2025-08-05). "Beli App Gamifies Dining to Attract Gen Z and Challenge Yelp". WebProNews. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  5. ^ Budman, Scott (2025-08-04). "What foodies need to know about Beli app". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bradley, Stephen (2025-06-24). "Beli Invites the Loneliest Generation to Dine Out". TASTE. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  7. ^ a b c Xu, Melody (Aug 4, 2025). "A new restaurant rating app is luring young Bay Area diners away from Yelp". San Francisco Chronicle.
  8. ^ "Beli - 2025 Company Profile & Team - Tracxn". tracxn.com. 2025-07-09. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  9. ^ a b Whateley, Sydney; Bradley, Dan. "Meet 19 startups in social networking, dating, and AI that investors have their eyes on". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  10. ^ a b c d e "A Once Niche Food App Is Now a Social Place for Gen Z". Food Network. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  11. ^ "How Beli Ate Yelp". 2025-09-15. Retrieved 2025-09-15.
  12. ^ a b Villalobos, Isabella (2025-04-17). "Foodies Unite: Meet 'Beli'". Valley Magazine. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  13. ^ a b "How the Beli App Is Turning Dining Out Into a Competitive Sport". TODAY.com. 2025-07-17. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  14. ^ Coen, Susie (2025-05-28). "Strava for restaurants: The app turning eating out into a competitive sport". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
  15. ^ "Data analytics features excite app users, raise privacy concerns". Daily Bruin. Retrieved 2025-08-22.
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