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“Every review is vetted by me before it goes online,” says Vir Sanghvi, well-known food critic and TV anchor, explaining how EazyDiner stands apart from other restaurant booking apps in India. The biggest one in this space is restaurant discovery app Zomato which recently added table booking service. But, as Vir points out, Zomato relies on user-generated content, which makes it far less consistent than the curated restaurant reviews on EazyDiner.
Sanghvi and a bunch of restaurateurs launched EazyDiner in Delhi earlier this year with seed funding from DSG Consumer Partners. Yesterday, it announced series A funding from DSGCP and new investor Saama Capital. It also expanded to Mumbai, after 25x growth in the last seven months, booking 10,000 diners in August compared to 400 in January.
The EazyDiner founders and backers saw an opening in the market for curated content, especially in high end dining out, and that’s how a seasoned food writer like Sanghvi came into the picture.
“You won’t find menus from many five star hotels on Zomato,” points out Vir. “If you look at our advisory panel, we have Vikram Oberoi of the Oberoi Hotels, Dinesh Nair of the Leela, Anjan Chatterjee of Mainland China… There are huge human factors involved in negotiating these deals.”
Most high end restaurants in India are reluctant to hop on to a food app, especially one that charges them a fee for sending guests. EazyDiner had to persuade them that it’s a credible service which will give them more business.
The EazyDiner platform also provides a concierge service for diners.
And finally, a sweetener: A diner who makes a booking through EazyDiner gets a free drink or dessert or at least a discount. “No meal without a deal” is one of its slogans.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.
This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.
