Times Group-owned Dineout Services Pvt Ltd, the company that owns and operates online restaurant reservation website Dineout, has acquired restaurant management solutions startup inResto Services Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition enables Dineout to provide a single dashboard for restaurants to manage table reservations, home delivery, takeaways, customer feedback, mobile payments, loyalty programs and a slew of activities, as per a press statement.
“Our endeavour is to provide a holistic solution for restaurateurs for their guest management goals. With this acquisition, we will enable them with a one-stop-solution to the challenges of getting to know their customers better, easing the process of table management, attending to feedback, marketing special offers and a cloud based CRM platform that is very easy to manage,†said Ankit Mehrotra, co-founder, Dineout.
As part of the deal, the entire team of inResto will join the Dineout office in Bangalore. inResto claims to have seated over 1 million restaurant diners in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi within six months of its launch.
Inresto was founded by BITS-Pilani graduate Vijayan Parthasarathy and IIIT-Hyderabad alumnus Vamsi Yalamanchili. The duo worked with Samsung Research India for 10 years before starting Inresto.
“We are extremely excited to join the mission of Dineout, and together we will enable thousands of restaurants to become smarter and more efficient with the Inresto platform,†said Parthasarathy, founder & CEO of inResto.
DineOut was founded in February 2012 by school friends-turned-fellow entrepreneurs Vivek Kapoor, Ankit Mehrotra, Sahil Jain and Nikhil Bakshi. Jain is an IIM-Kozhikode graduate, who was joined by Mehrotra, an investment banker who quit his job to start DineOut. Bakshi earlier worked with DSP BlackRock for five years, while Kapoor was a navigating officer with British Petroleum.
Dineout presently operates in seven cities and claims to have over 20,000 restaurant listings on it platform.
“In six months, they’ve done a million diners and that’s a very impressive growth. It’s an open platform where it helps restaurants to get rid of multiple tech solutions for their various activities. Further, it helps restaurants to recognise, identify and mark the credibility of their customers. The number of listings on our platform grows at a rapid phase and the scope for this solution is enormous,†said Kapoor.
DineOut was acquired by TimesCity, part of Times Internet Limited (TIL) last year. In July 2012, the company had raised Rs 60 lakhs from Ankush Nijhawan and Gaurav Bhatnagar, founders of Travel Boutique Online.
The table booking space in India is poised to see hyper competition. Restaurant search firm Zomato diversified into this area recently. Singapore-headquartered restaurant reservation site Chope is exploring an entry into Indian market. Chope has presence across Southeast Asia and has raised $8 million from DSGCP and others. Recently, Vir Sanghvi-backed restaurant reservation firm EazyDiner Pvt Ltd raised $3 million (Rs 20 crore) from existing investor DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital.