Dineout plans to raise $50 mn from existing, foreign investors

After a brief slowdown during the last couple of years, India's food-tech sector has started attracting investor's interest again and food-tech firms are making the most out of it. Restaurant table reservation startup Dineout also plans to raise over $50 million, according to a senior executive.

The company will be hitting the market to raise this money in the next few months and plans to invest it over the next two years.

The round is likely to see participation from the existing investor Times Internet. Dineout will also be looking for a new strategic investor.

"The money will broadly be utilised in our India and international expansion and increasing the team count," said Ankit Mehrotra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dineout.

Dineout currently offers its software to restaurants across Dubai and the UK and plans to set up local operations across Dubai, Europe and Singapore going forward. It is also targeting an increase in the team strength to 650 people by March from the current strength of 450 people.

Founded in 2012 by Mehrotra, Vivek Kapoor, Ankit Mehrotra, Sahil Jain and Nikhil Bakshi, Dineout was acquired by TimesCity, part of Times Internet Limited (TIL) in 2014. In 2012, it had raised Rs 60 lakh from high net worth individuals.

The company currently offers multiple B2B and B2C products. It offers table reservation across eight cities with a listing of over 25,000 restaurants. Currently, the company claims to be seating around 1.5 million diners per month across its partner restaurants. It also has offerings such as SmartPay and Gourmet Passport for customers. SmartPay is a payments offering which enables customers to pay their restaurant bills through the Dineout app. Gourmet Passport gives customers discounts on food and drinks across restaurants. The company claims to have 50,000 active Gourmet Passport subscribers and targets 150,000 subscribers by March 2019.

On the B2B side, it offers tech platform to the restaurants called inResto. It is a management software which allows restaurants to acquire, engage and retain their customers. It also helps them manage reservations and walk-ins and manage tables in real time. It also provides CRM tools and in-depth analytics of their operations.

The company competes with the likes of EasyDiner which last raised $5.85 million in a round led by Denlow Investment Trust and early-stage investment firm, Beenext.

The food-tech sector managed to raise almost four times more investment until June 2018 than the whole of last year. Compared to investments of $134 million throughout the entire previous year, the sector saw 15 rounds of investments raising $473 million during the first half of 2018, according to data tracker Tracxn.