Foodics, a restaurant operations and financial management platform serving more than 40,000 branches across the Middle East and North Africa, has acquired Greece-based AI company Norma AI in full. The deal completes a takeover that began with an initial stake in early 2025, bringing Norma's team into Foodics' AI division and integrating its analytics and business intelligence tools directly into the platform.
The acquisition gives Foodics control over Norma's natural language business intelligence application, which lets restaurant operators query data, receive instant answers, and create customized dashboards without technical expertise. Since the initial integration, the technology has been adopted across more than 10,000 customer branches.
Natural language analytics built for operators
Norma, founded by George Henein and Anastasios Anastasiadis, develops AI-powered analytics that surface operational data in plain language. Its 2024 business intelligence app eliminates the need for SQL or analytics training, making data accessible to non-technical staff. The company previously raised funding from strategic investors and joined Foodics' solutions marketplace before moving toward deeper integration.
The toolset aligns closely with modern Data Analysis practices by automating querying and visualization tasks that typically require engineering time. Norma's team now operates within Foodics' AI division, working on expanding these capabilities.
Why Foodics bought Norma outright
"As the industry grew more complex, so did the data - and turning that data into fast, confident decisions became one of the biggest challenges operators face," said Ahmad AlZaini, Co-founder and CEO of Foodics. "Successful restaurants will be the ones who close that gap, utilizing intelligence in every layer of their operations."
AlZaini said the acquisition accelerates Foodics' AI product roadmap and strengthens its ability to help operators improve efficiency and profitability. The company plans to develop agentic AI tools that support real-time operational decisions.
Doubling down on hospitality AI
George Henein, Norma's Co-founder, said the combined resources and market reach will broaden adoption of AI analytics across the sector. "Our goal was to help restaurants make better decisions by making data more accessible, and easier to use with an intuitive experience," he said. "Combining Foodics' market leadership with Norma's expertise in AI and analytics creates a strong foundation for the next generation of hospitality technology."
Foodics, headquartered in Riyadh and founded in 2014, provides cloud-based POS, self-ordering kiosks, online ordering, business intelligence, and embedded financial services. It manages more than $12 billion in gross merchandise value. The Norma integration supports a broader push into AI solutions tailored for food and beverage businesses, an area where specialized AI for Hospitality & Events tools are becoming essential for competitive operations.
Why this matters for IT and development professionals
For developers and IT teams, Norma's full absorption into Foodics signals growing demand for AI platforms that translate complex data into decisions without requiring SQL skills or custom BI builds. The move toward agentic AI tools-systems that act on insights rather than just displaying them-will require engineers to design, integrate, and monitor these autonomous agents. Understanding how natural language interfaces connect to operational databases and POS systems becomes a practical skill set as restaurant tech evolves beyond static dashboards.
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