TripAdvisor invested in Eatigo, aiming to grow in Asia

ASEAN’s food businesses may look promising with robust growth. However, the recent TripAdvisor’s investment in Eatigo probably reflects some bitter truth.

According to Eatigo’s co-founder and CEO Michael Cluzel, although the 2015 total revenue of restaurants throughout ASEAN reached to US$100 billion, only 35% of them could strongly survive the businesses. In Singapore alone, restaurant business has suffered loss of US$1.8 billion each year. This has become the gap for Eatigo to provide its services for clients.

As for the new fund, Eatigo will focus mainly on Asian markets. At present, Eatigo has more than 4 million customers in many countries including Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and recently Phillippines. In penetrating Indian market, Eatigo has merged with Ressy – an application for restaurant booking service in India).

The recent investment from TripAdvisor and TheFork, restaurant reservation application, will not only provide financial support for Eatigo but allow it to access TripAdvisor’s database of over 4 million restaurants as TheFork which has over 50,000 restaurants in 11 countries.

TripAdvisor can also help enhance working efficiency, share experience, lay out organizational structure and provide the guidelines for seeking business partners for Eatigo as well.

TripAdvisor declined to reveal the investment cost. However, considering the total investment budget up until now, it is worth more than US$25 million, up from US$15.5 million in 2016.

Therefore, the investment budget is estimated at US$10 million.

As Eatigo becomes bigger, so are the competitors. The likely possible competitors in the region include Malaysia’s Offpeak which also provides restaurant reservation services; or Singapore’s Chope, real time restaurant-reservation booking platform and food delivery startup which serves delicious dishes directly to customers’ homes.

An analyst in the startup points out that Chope will be mostly challenged by Eatigo and Offpeak. TripAdvisor has partnered with Chope as well, and its users in Singapore are redirected to the site when they book tables. This investment thus will be benefit to Eatigo and Chope.

Reference: techinasia.com