Dodo Pizza is a pizza delivery franchise founded in 2011 by Fyodor Ovchinnikov. The corporation is headquartered in Syktyvkar and Moscow in the Russian Federation. As of October 2019, the company has 457 pizzerias in Russia and 69 in 11 other countries. It's the largest pizza chain in Russia and one of Europe's fastest-growing restaurant chains. Ovchinnikov states that the company views itself as an IT-drivenretail company based on the principle of transparency. Dodo Pizza uses a cloud-based system known as Dodo IS that collects and processes operations data, reports real-time business analytics, and helps kitchen and delivery staff to be more efficient by allowing for more informed decision-making. In 2014, the company ran the largest crowdfunding initiative in Russia to date, raising over $2 million from 180 private investors. Dodo also made headlines from Washington to Tokyo with what it billed as the world's first commercial delivery of pizzas by drone, to customers in the central square in Syktyvkar. In September 2018, Fyodor Ovchinnikov announced that the chain would grow its IT team from 60 to 250 developers in two years, and by October 2019, Dodo Pizza has doubled it. According to the chain's public Top Pizza Shop Sales Ranking, the best-performing Dodo Pizza store in Novy Urengoy, Russia netted $166,086 in sales in March 2019. In 2018, Dodo Pizza sold the franchise rights for Nigeria to Quality Foods Africa, the same group of British investors that brought Krispy Kreme to that continent's most populous country. The first of a planned 20 Dodos will open in October 2019 in Lagos. In 2019, Dodo Pizza opened a cashless pizza store in China, its “primary market of the future” along with Britain. In November 2019, the company received GRLC DistinctionAward for Innovation at Global Restaurant Leadership Conference in Singapore. The company is planning to add 1,000 pizza shops in Europe, Asia and Africa over the next five years and to hit $500 million in network revenue by 2021 and $1 billion by 2024. The brand's name and logo refer to the now extinct Dodo of Mauritius which is also a character in one of Fyodor Ovchinnkov's favorite novels, “Alice in Wonderland.”
