How Two Gulliver Alumni Are Bringing AI Innovation to Fast Food
For brothers Mateo Acosta-Rubio ‘23 and Tadeo Acosta-Rubio ‘19, entrepreneurship didn’t begin with a startup – it began long before that. Growing up in their family business, ChurroMania, they were exposed early to what it takes to operate, lead, and build at scale.
Now, the Gulliver alumni are applying those lessons in a new space: artificial intelligence. Through the AI platform Clave, fast food franchise operators are able to run more efficiently. The company connects restaurant systems like point of sale, labor, inventory, and delivery to turn data into automated recommendations and actions.
The Miami-based startup has already raised more than $1 million in pre-seed funding from firms including Bain Capital, Hustle Fund, and Tetrad VC, and is working with brands including Jamba, Ben & Jerry’s, and Capriotti’s.
“We work with brands that we grew up taking notes on, and now they trust us to prepare them for the reality that’s coming, which is this wave of artificial intelligence. That’s an incredible amount of responsibility that we’re honored to have and to be able to wield,” they said.
For Mateo and Tadeo, what they are building today is deeply tied to the foundation they received at Gulliver, starting in 2010. Tadeo studied both entrepreneurship and the arts, competing across band, orchestra, and jazz band while winning the Miami Herald Business Plan Competition through the Gulliver Business Showcase in 2018. Mateo developed his leadership style as captain of Gulliver’s varsity soccer team and a two-time state champion. The brothers say they’re now able to apply the confidence, communication, creativity, and leadership they learned at Gulliver to an industry on the verge of transformation.
“Everything feels like an opportunity,” they said, “because Gulliver let us explore every part of ourselves and discover what we were truly capable of. Gulliver was the first domino, and every day now feels like another domino – creating all the momentum we have today at Clave.”
As Clave continues expanding across the United States and Latin America, the brothers remain focused on, and motivated by, the larger impact they hope to make. The brothers believe the future of AI will fundamentally reshape industries, consumer behavior, and culture itself.
They said, “When our team thinks about how Clave can lead the charge in revolutionizing the fast food industry, we want to provide as much value as possible to some of the most important companies that shape our culture today. Our vision is to enable anyone to generate scalable societal value – and coming from the industry, we know QSR Franchising is the perfect system for that.”
Their entrepreneurship story is still unfolding – both in the company they’re building, and how quickly they’re learning to build it.
They say one thing is for sure, “We’re living in the most exciting time to be human.”
