Dubai-based Eat App raises $5 million Series B for its restaurant reservation platform

Dubai-based Eat App has raised $5 million in a Series B round co-led by 500 Startups and Saudi’s Derayah VC, the startup announced last week in a statement to MENAbytes. The announcement was first made at Step Conference in Dubai earlier this week.

The round also included follow-on investments from Middle East Venture Partners, FA Holding, and some other international VCs and regional angel investors, said the startup.

Founded in 2015 by Nezar Kadhem and David Feuillard, Eat App is a reservation platform and online marketplace (a SaaS-enabled marketplace) for restaurants, allowing users to reserve tables at over 1,000 restaurants in the Middle East & North Africa.

The startup that claims to be the number one restaurant reservation platform in the Arab world has partnerships with Google, TripAdvisor, Zomato, Time Out, and many other platforms – that represent 46 million monthly active users in total.

For the restaurants, Eat App’s software offers the ability to manage CRM and analytics. It also lists them on its web and mobile-based reservation marketplace to help customers discover them and book tables online.

Eat App’s subscription comes with offers easy-to-install widgets to restaurants to allow them to sell tables right from their websites (and even social media pages). It also offers direct booking integrations with TripAdvisor, Google, Zomato and other local platforms.

The subscription sells for $99 a month for yearly billing and $139 a month for monthly billing.

Eat App plans to use the investment to expand and solidify its presence across the region, especially in the fast-growing Saudi market, it said int the statement adding that the investment will also scale its sales and engineering teams, R&D, unique IP and technology.

Nezar Kadhem, Co-founder of Eat App, said, “Our first course of action is to triple headcount in sales and engineering and launch new offices in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. We have an impressive product roadmap focused on new verticals including restaurant payments, guest loyalty, CRM and enterprise-level technology. We will also continue building innovative restaurant discovery options for consumers.”