Restaurant reservation platform Dineout buys SaaS startup Torqus

Dineout Services Pvt. Ltd, an online restaurant reservation platform owned by Times Internet Ltd, has acquired cloud-based Point of Sale (PoS) firm Torqus Systems Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Times Internet, which is the digital business arm of media conglomerate Times Group, said in a statement that the acquisition would help strengthen its offerings as a full-stack technology services provider in the online restaurant booking space.

Pune-based Torqus’ co-founder and chief executive officer Tanmay Ratnaparkhe said his entire team would now become part of Dineout though it will continue to function as an independent entity.

“Today, nobody else can claim to map the entire end-customer spectrum as intricately as we can,’ Ratnaparkhe added.

Dineout co-founder and business head Ankit Mehrotra said that a lot of innovations have been taking place in the restaurant aggregation and delivery space and the Dineout-Torqus combine will enable them to tap into the other possibilities in the market.

The acquisition is Dineout’s second of 2018 and third overall. Earlier this year, the company acquired Delhi-based Gourmet Passport, a mobile app that helps users avail buy-one-get-one free offers at restaurants.

In August 2015, it acquired restaurant management solutions startup inResto Services Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Torqus

Torqus was launched by Ratnaparkhe and Suneet Kulkarni in 2013. It offers a cloud-based restaurant software system that helps restaurateurs manages all their back-end activities, ranging from procurement to billing to taking feedback from end customers after the meal.

The firm operates on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. It has four product offerings — POS, Head Office, Supply Chain Management and mobile POS, as per information available on its website.  

POS software takes care of all the functionalities of a restaurant outlet, ranging from steward management to a dynamic menu. Its Head Office platform accumulates customer data, manages and tracks delivery stages, handles aggressive SMS marketing, and also manoeuvres data from a single access point.

The Supply Chain Management offering enables management of the restaurant chain inventory by coordinating all business functions, ranging from procurement and manufacturing to sale estimation and invoicing. Its Mobile Point of Sale product offers POS solutions for food trucks and food carts.

Torqus’ products are now being used in more than 3,500 outlets across 70-plus cities in five countries. Its clients include Freshmenu, Theobroma, The Bowl Company, Curefit, Coffee by Di Bella, Swensen's, Barshala, Baker’s Basket, Malaka Spice, and InnerChef, among others.

Dineout

Dineout was founded in 2012 by Mehrotra, Vivek Kapoor, Sahil Jain and Nikhil Bakshi. In 2014, it was acquired by online nightlife and restaurant guide TimesCity, part of Times Internet Limited (TIL).

Dineout enables users to discover restaurants in their city, reserve a table in advance, avail F&B industry offers including 1+1 across food, drink & buffets through Gourmet Passport, as well as earn cashback on every restaurant bill payment via its integrated payment option, Dineout Pay.

Dineout claims that its restaurant reservation platform has been used by more than 10 million users across 6,500 restaurants in the top nine cities that include Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.

Dineout’s table reservation and F&B offerings compete with the likes of Alibaba-backed Zomato.

The online restaurant reservation space also has other funded players such as Eazydiner, which in August this year closed a stretched Series B round from investors including Singapore-based early-stage venture capital firm BeeNext, and existing investors DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital.