Singapore’s Eatsy raises additional US$550K in seed funding

• Round was led by East Ventures with participation from angel investors
• Aims to make mobile ordering and payment the new way of life when dining out

SINGAPORE-based Eatsy, a mobile app that allows time-starved diners to order-ahead, pay and pick-up their orders at their favorite local eateries and coffee shops, announced that it has secured US$550,000 in additional seed funding led by East Ventures.

Participating in the round are several angel investors including Goh Yiping, who used to run MatahariMall and AllDealsAsia.

The investment will accelerate Eatsy’s mission to make mobile ordering and payment the new way of life when dining out.

In 2017, they were one of the first few companies to be backed by Enterprise Singapore under the Startup SG Founder grant. To date, the company has raised more than US$1 million in funding from Southeast Asian venture capitalists, East Ventures and Quest Ventures, as well as, angel investors including Wee Teng Wen (Lo&Behold) and all three co-founders of RedMart.

“With the access to new capital, we look forward to further development in technology, product expansion, and acquisition of new talents in 2019. Furthermore, Eatsy plans to cement its position as a leader in the mobile order-ahead and pick-up space in Singapore” said Eatsy co-founder and CEO Shaun Heng.

East Ventures managing partner Willson Cuaca, said, “Omni-channel is an important strategy for SMEs to thrive in the digital era. In F&B, which is a market of US$100 billion with an annual growth of 2.65% in SEA, the potential can expand through the capacity to seamlessly process orders both from walk-in and digital. Eatsy is best positioned to bring innovation to crack this market.”

How it all began

Heng founded Eatsy with the mission to empower more SMEs in the F&B industry to gain a competitive edge by leveraging on existing technology infrastructure and leapfrog the ordering and payment challenges faced by many of these SMEs.

“Standing in a queue and waiting for your turn to order, for the waitstaff to take the order and collect payment, for food to be prepared and served, gets in the way of the rest of the day.

“Since Singaporeans are not exactly known for time off, they want to get as much done with what they have got, and mobile order-ahead apps like ours help diners save more time for more important things in life. Through our platform, customers can save their time by placing their order from our 200+ merchants before they are on-site, pay, and pick it up within the stipulated timing,” said Heng.

He explained that the company also saw how mobile order-ahead apps are gaining ground in the rest of the world - around 13% of Starbucks transactions in the US are made with mobile order-ahead and payment options; GrubHub picked up LevelUp in a US$390 million deal, whereas order-ahead app, Ritual recently raised US$70 million to consolidate their position in the West.

The bridge to making a positive impact

“What F&B merchants are seeing right now are the same challenges retailers saw 10 years ago. What does it mean to become omni-channel? How do you deal with the new source of demand from walk-in orders plus digital orders?” Heng said.

Over time, these retailers adapted to these challenges and begun leveraging on online data to help them make better and smarter decisions around pricing and order fulfillment. Merchants on Eatsy’s platform experience are already seeing higher repeat customer visits and better bottom lines as repeat customers tend to spend more and transact more frequently.

Additionally, the streamlined checkout process enables merchants to process more customers than the normal order and checkout lanes in-store.

“One of our merchant, Bakery Cuisine, had to add more waffle machines to cope with the additional demand of waffle orders via the Eatsy platform,” Heng said.

Moreover, the SME Go Digital Programme that was implemented in Singapore last year has been seen to boost more awareness and willingness to experiment with various digital solutions for the F&B industry.

Eatsy hopes to empower more SMEs in the F&B industry to gain a competitive and technological edge with its ordering and payment platform. This is also in alignment with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s longstanding call to “go cashless” at a national level.

To date, the company has partnered with more than 200 merchants in Singapore and has posted double-digit, month-over-month growth in both diner base and gross transaction value since launching in January 2018.