How an AI Startup Co-Founded by a Formula 1 Driver Hit $9M ARR in Just 8 Weeks - Rolling Stone MENA

Jack Doohan’s AI startup Meuze has reached a contracted $9 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) just eight weeks after launch, the company says, with a footprint spanning more than 2,000 locations and major customers including Oakberry and Skinny Louie. Co‑founded by Doohan with William James Zacka, George Allen and Erik Cupsa, Meuze describes itself as an “AI ‘Company Brain’ built for the Food & Beverage industry” that layers intelligence on top of existing QSR systems to solve fragmentation across POS, inventory, suppliers and waste systems.

“We are not a software vendor. We are the intelligence layer. We don’t replace what operators already have. We sit on top of the existing solutions and power your work for you,” Doohan said.

How Meuze works

Meuze ingests data signals from disparate operational systems — POS, invoices, inventory, supplier and waste systems — and combines them with external inputs such as consumer behaviour, weather, local events, store context, GLP‑1 drug adoption trends and distributor data. The startup calls the resulting unified model a “company brain” and builds targeted modules on top of it for waste and inventory optimisation, demand forecasting, marketing campaign intelligence and expansion planning.

• Contracted ARR: $9 million after eight weeks
• Current footprint: more than 2,000 locations
• Expansion target: more than 10,000 locations by year‑end
• Early customers: Oakberry, Skinny Louie

Founding team and competitive edge

Doohan, a 23‑year‑old who entered Formula 1 in 2025 and now serves as a reserve driver for the Haas team, is Meuze’s CEO and an active coder. His co‑founders play complementary roles: William James Zacka is Co‑Founder & COO, George Allen is Co‑Founder and Chief Commercial Officer, and Erik Cupsa is Chief Technology Officer. Cupsa is a former Amazon engineer; Zacka and Allen have prior entrepreneurial experience together, including a multi‑million dollar merchandise business and co‑founding Pilatus Capital, a venture fund and studio.

“We were looking where AI would have the most impact,” Zacka said, adding that the team saw an opportunity to “tackle fragmentation with aggregation of all these vertical softwares into a unified data layer.” Allen emphasised the defensibility of the approach: “We also knew that we could have a distinct competitive edge if we moved quickly with unique data extraction without intrusive integration. And there would be high barriers for competitors amidst existing fragmentation.”

Context and momentum

Meuze’s rapid commercial uptake has been aided by Doohan’s global network from motorsport, which he says provides ready access to Fortune 500 decision‑makers across the F1 paddock. The team also states they are not actively seeking investment, having planned for cash‑flow positive growth and a sustained marketing push across MENA, Asia and South America.

“A typical multi location, QSR operator is running dozens of disconnected software systems simultaneously,” Cupsa said. “Meuze then sits above all of it … The output is a live, unified model of how the business runs — what we call the company brain which is at the epicentre of everything.”

Outlook

Meuze aims to scale to more than 10,000 locations by the end of the year, leveraging a network effect whereby each new operator sharpens the model for others. The founders argue that this compounded data advantage creates a growing moat that will be “genuinely difficult to replicate,” positioning Meuze to expand across the Middle East and North Africa as well as established markets in Asia and South America.