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EazyDiner Bags Rs 30 Crores in Series B DELHI, MUMBAI and BENGALURU, October 12, 2017/PRNewswire/--- Global investors shift focus from delivery-led models to thetable reservation-based platforms mirroring a trend seenglobally- Series B funding by existing backers DSG Consumer Partners &Saama Capital with new investor BeeNext of Japan and anInternational family office participating in this round- 3.5x on a pre-valuation from Rs 75 crores in Series A to Rs250 crores pre-valuation in Series B in less than 24 months- EazyDiner is already profitable in Delhi NCR, Mumbai,Bengaluru and Chennai on a net profit basis leading to higherinvestor interestAs the country's only instant table reservation platform -EazyDiner raises Rs 30 crores in it's latest round of funding,Indian Food Tech is back on the radar of global investors,with the focus also moving to the dining-in space atrestaurants. To quote Benedict Evans, the Silicon Valley-basedVC at Andreessen Horowitz - "Food Away from home is picking upwhile the 'Food at home' or delivery at home is on thedecline." With Asian markets following US trends over a 3-4year lag time, the Indian market is headed in the samedirection with table reservations making a hot entry into theFood Tech space for investors. Open Table, the global leaderin table reservations was bought by the Priceline group for US2.6 Billion dollars in 2014.
EazyDiner is an instant table reservation platform thatalso offers curated content from leading food critics and isbuilding the country's first F&B loyalty programme that offerspoints on every table booking at over 2500 top-end restaurantsacross India with over 5 lac subscribers. This is in additionto the 2 million people who use it every month for restaurantdiscovery. Rohit Dasgupta, CEO, EazyDiner, said, "We are todayseating over 1,00,000 diners every month all across India,making us the largest instant table reservation platform inIndia. Our proprietary product, LiveTable enables the instantconfirmation promise to our customers and is today installedin hundreds of top end restaurants and we are able to confirma table reservation within 18 seconds as compared to the otherdining platforms which take close to 3 minutes." Speaking on the investment, Deepak Shahdadpuri, MD, DSGConsumer partners, said, "EazyDiner continues to growexponentially with strategic alliances and we are very proudas DSG was the first investor in the company. It is a marketleader in its segment and is reducing the friction between thediner and the restaurant significantly. We are committed to beinvesting in EazyDiner for the long term and pleased withprofitability in 4 cities in a short span of 2.5 years." Millennials, the next generation to lead India spends Rs11,800 a month on an average on eating out. The population ofthis critical segment is expected to grow to 640 million by2020. And to top it all, 87% of their disposable income willbe spent on eating out. It's no surprise with such factspublished in the Goldman Sachs report, Investor interest justdoes not lie in delivery but dining out space as well.
The start-up launched in April 2015 has also piquedinterest from the existing large online companies. In May2017, TripAdvisor, the 6 Billion dollar US giant announced itsexclusive tie-up with EazyDiner, with all table reservationson TripAdvisor being powered by EazyDiner. TripAdvisor is theworld's largest travel company and views restaurants as anintegral part of an individual's travel plan.
After EazyDiner's integration with TripAdvisor, Googlefollowed the suit and has integrated with EazyDiner to sourcethe curated content on EazyDiner that comes in the form ofrestaurant reviews by leading food critics with unique insidertips.
Teruhide Sate, Founder, BeeNext, said, "What we love aboutEazyDiner is the founding team, domain expertise and the rightmarket strategy. Experienced restauranteurs with a strongtechnology team backed by India's best food critics gives thema domain that they can win in. We believe they will continueto be very strong influencers and the mainstay of Food andBeverage in India." Rohit added, "We believe that diners are now seekingoriginal and curated content rather than just user generatedcontent. Today, we have a team of the 11 best food critics inIndia based in every city and led by Vir Sanghvi ,whoregularly rate and review the most popular and trendingrestaurants in town. This content is unique to EazyDiner andhence Google today has integrated with us to throw up ourCritic Reviews when someone searches for a restaurant." The venture signed-up cricketer Yuvraj Singh who alsoinvested funds from YouWeCan ventures and came on board as itsBrand Ambassador in June. On 5th October 2017, Yuvraj launched'FreeCheers' a new bar and nightlife product to get a user adrink for less than Rs 17 at the best bars in town every day.
The start-up is present across 9 cities and 2 countries inIndia and UAE with Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai,Kolkata, Pune, Goa and Ahmedabad already live. EazyDiner willbe expanding to 12 cities including Jaipur, Udaipur andHyderabad in the next 3 months. EazyDiner is definitelyencouraging users to get out of bed and eat out more withexciting deals and instant confirmations.
About EazyDiner:EazyDiner is India's first curated table reservation platformthat helps a user read concise reviews and recommendations bytop critics, offering real time guaranteed restaurantreservations. The user experience includes, finding greatrestaurants and bars to making instant online reservationswith exciting deals, ranging from a glass of wine to a dessertplatter - all within 30 seconds. EazyDiner was founded in 2014by experienced hoteliers and restaurateurs in a partnershipwith celebrated journalist and food critic Vir Sanghvi.
With instant reservations at over 2200 partner celebratedrestaurants, award winning five star hotels; trend settingbars in India and Dubai, one can take pride in dining atrestaurants that don't usually take reservations unless bookedthrough EazyDiner. The platform also provides a customizedexperience to its diners through its expert 24 hours culinaryconcierge service for personalized recommendations. EazyDineris dedicated to leading the Indian dining revolution with anadvanced database management of active diners andrecommendations by top food critics. The EazyDiner iOS andAndroid apps have been rated amongst the highest scoringapplications in India.
For more details, visit: https://www.EazyDiner.com.
Media Contact: Rohit Dasgupta rohit@eazydiner.com +91-7042595780 Co-Founder and CEO EazyDiner.comSource: EazyDinerPRNewswireOSS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.