Restaurant booking site PoshVine raises funding from MyFirstCheque

Restaurant booking site PoshVine, run by Bangalore-based Viverati Interactive Pvt Ltd, has raised Rs 25 lakh from seed investor MyFirstCheque.

Set up in 2011 by Richik Nandi and Garima Satija, PoshVine brings fine-dining experience to all its registered users. You can book tables online, get price advantages or opt for chef exclusives. Other special services include unique gourmet safaris, pop-up dining with top chefs and so on. Currently, the site covers three cities – Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, and you just have to create an account to discover the gourmet treats from premium restaurants.

However, one could not possibly miss the striking resemblance to the older (and better-known) Zomato in this context. On the other hand, the founders of PoshVine claim that the business model, service offerings and objectives are all different. "Our model is very different from other restaurant guides or aggregators. We curate premium restaurants and experiences, and sell it to our customers with insider benefits like discounts, on-the-house chef special dishes and other bonuses," said Nandi, co-founder and VP (product development) at PoshVine.

The company earns revenue by charging commission on restaurant table booking via its portal and also on the 'experiences' it offers. Another monetisation channel is through the proprietary software that PoshVine has developed. It is called Electronic Reservation Book and acts like a distribution point for a restaurant's digital storefront, thus monetising its online traffic. According to Nandi, the company has quite a few plans for future development but for the moment, the capital will be utilised for product development and expanding its footprint in other cities. PoshVine has currently partnered with more than 170 restaurants in the regions where it operates. Going more social is one of the plans in the pipeline, as Nandi said, "We want to be a network of foodies." PoshVine would be looking at more funding sometime early next year.

This is MyFirstCheque's fifth investment so far. Earlier, it had invested in deal aggregation platform OfferGrid, auto portal Mericar.com, pre-used baby products site Precared and online college admission assistance portal Aply2many, run by Mkay Solutions.

Commenting on the investment, Gautam Sinha, partner at MyFirstCheque, said, "We believe that PoshVine will play a catalytic role as the Indian consumer aspires to create memories from dining and the online reservation with insider benefits and curated gastronomical experiences at premium restaurants is the first step towards that."

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)