Untappd is a subsidiary of Next Glass, Inc., which took growth investment from private equity firm Providence Strategic Growth (PSG) in April 2020. That deal also installed Trace Smith as CEO, replacing founder Kurt Taylor, per an April 23, 2020 report.

Is Untappd profitable?

No verified profitability figures exist. Untappd and parent Next Glass are private and don't disclose earnings; third-party revenue estimates for Next Glass conflict wildly ($35.1M vs $127M per data aggregators), so profitability cannot be confirmed from public sources as of 2026.

Could AI replace Untappd?

An April 21, 2026 industry analysis argues Untappd's moat, personal check-in histories and social graphs, could decay within about three years if consumer AI assistants like ChatGPT or Gemini gain access to users' personal purchase and calendar data.

Who is Untappd's biggest competitor?

Vivino is the closest cross-category peer, focused on wine with 65M+ claimed users and roughly $489M in 2023 e-commerce net sales versus Untappd's near-12 million users as of late 2025. Toast is also a growing threat via native POS menu tools.

Is Untappd for Business growing or shrinking?

Untappd for Business reported nearly 20,000 venues across 75-80 countries as of March 19, 2026, per The Drinks Business. A single April 2026 Substack analysis claims that figure is 'down from a peak,' though this is unverified elsewhere.

Is it safe to take a job at Untappd or Next Glass?

No confirmed layoffs were found in trackers reviewed through mid-2026; Next Glass has instead been expanding via acquisition (Ekos, October 27, 2025) and described itself as roughly 80% remote-first in a 2024 company release.

Consumer platforms · subsidiary of Next Glass, Inc. · United States

Untappd

untappd.com ↗

Social check-in app for beer, wine, and spirits, with a B2B venue tool, owned by Next Glass.

Losing its protection

Assessed 23 July 2026 · Evidence as of 23 July 2026

The structural protection is eroding.

On the recordSince 23 July 2026 · Checkable from H1 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Ekos integration results and confirmation of Untappd for Business venue count

The call

A category-leading consumer app sits inside a private equity roll-up, with its paying B2B side facing questions about growth while AI reshapes how people discover drinks.

Untappd lets people track drinks they've tried, rate them, and see what friends are drinking, while also selling tools to bars and restaurants to manage their menus online. The app's strength comes from years of user reviews and drinking history that would take a competitor a long time to build, but this advantage could disappear in the next few years if ChatGPT or Google Assistant start recommending drinks based on what you've actually bought. The bigger worry is that Toast and other point-of-sale systems (the cash registers bars use) could add these same menu and recommendation features themselves, which would hurt Untappd's business with restaurants.

Why

AI pressure: ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI assistants gaining purchase-history access. If AI assistants get purchase data, they can recommend drinks directly, skipping the need to log in Untappd first. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.

Bigger players: Toast (POS platform). Toast already runs point-of-sale for many bars and could build menu management natively, replacing Untappd for Business. Could a giant copy it? Yes, easily.

What protects it. 12 million users and 1.5 billion check-ins create a social and data record that's slow to rebuild elsewhere.

What would change this call

Toast or another POS platform ships a native drink-menu management feature. Would show incumbents can bypass Untappd for Business without needing its product.
Untappd for Business venue count reported below or above the ~20,000 figure in future filings or press. Would confirm whether the profitable B2B side is growing or shrinking.
ChatGPT, Gemini, or similar assistant launches personalized beverage recommendations using purchase history. Would show AI assistants encroaching on Untappd's personal-log consumer moat.

Key numbers

12M users, 1.5B check-ins logged (2025-12-15)
Untappd for Business: ~20,000 venues (2026-03-19)
PSG invested in parent Next Glass (2020-04-23)

Named risks

Consumer AI assistants gaining purchase-history access could hollow personal check-in moat within ~3 years. Severity: high
Toast or other POS incumbents could build native menu-management competing with Untappd for Business. Severity: high
Untappd for Business venue count possibly eroding from a stated peak, per one unverified third-party source. Severity: medium
Craft beer category volume decline forces unproven multi-beverage pivot including regulatory-sensitive THC category. Severity: medium
Conflicting, non-filed revenue and headcount estimates reduce financial transparency for outside observers. Severity: low

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
Vivino	contesting	Wine-focused rival claims 65M+ users vs Untappd's ~12M as of 2025-12; adjacent not direct overlap
Toast	contesting	Now a distribution partner via 2026-03-19 POS integration, but structurally able to build native competing menu tools
CellarTracker	contesting	Surviving wine-logging niche peer with 13M tasting notes over 23 years, per 2026-04-21 analysis
RateBeer, Delectable, Hello Vino, Snooth	gaining on	Cited as having 'died or drifted' over the past decade, per 2026-04-21 third-party analysis, leaving Untappd dominant

Questions people ask

Who owns Untappd?: Untappd is a subsidiary of Next Glass, Inc., which took growth investment from private equity firm Providence Strategic Growth (PSG) in April 2020. That deal also installed Trace Smith as CEO, replacing founder Kurt Taylor, per an April 23, 2020 report.
Is Untappd profitable?: No verified profitability figures exist. Untappd and parent Next Glass are private and don't disclose earnings; third-party revenue estimates for Next Glass conflict wildly ($35.1M vs $127M per data aggregators), so profitability cannot be confirmed from public sources as of 2026.
Could AI replace Untappd?: An April 21, 2026 industry analysis argues Untappd's moat, personal check-in histories and social graphs, could decay within about three years if consumer AI assistants like ChatGPT or Gemini gain access to users' personal purchase and calendar data.
Who is Untappd's biggest competitor?: Vivino is the closest cross-category peer, focused on wine with 65M+ claimed users and roughly $489M in 2023 e-commerce net sales versus Untappd's near-12 million users as of late 2025. Toast is also a growing threat via native POS menu tools.
Is Untappd for Business growing or shrinking?: Untappd for Business reported nearly 20,000 venues across 75-80 countries as of March 19, 2026, per The Drinks Business. A single April 2026 Substack analysis claims that figure is 'down from a peak,' though this is unverified elsewhere.
Is it safe to take a job at Untappd or Next Glass?: No confirmed layoffs were found in trackers reviewed through mid-2026; Next Glass has instead been expanding via acquisition (Ekos, October 27, 2025) and described itself as roughly 80% remote-first in a 2024 company release.

Timeline

2026-03-31Next Glass launches PaySmart, a payments product for beverage producers
2026-03-19Untappd for Business launches Toast POS integration; reports ~20,000 venues
2025-12-15Untappd Recappd reports nearly 12M users, 1.5M unique beverages, 2.6M locations
2025-11-13Untappd expands rating categories from ~450 beer styles to 900+, adds wine, spirits, THC
2025-10-27Next Glass acquires Ekos, craft-beverage supply-chain SaaS with 1,200+ customers
2020-04-23PSG invests in Next Glass; Trace Smith named CEO, replacing Kurt Taylor
2020-02Next Glass acquires BeerAdvocate
2016-01-15Untappd and Next Glass announce strategic merger
2010-10-22Untappd founded by Greg Avola and Tim Mather

Revision history

23 July 2026

First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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