Dineout Acquires Binge Digital To Support Its Newest Product, Dine-in

Times Internet-owned online restaurant table booking service Dineout has announced the acquisition of Delhi-based foodtech company Binge Digital for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is expected to help its digital menu product Dine-in.

Binge Digital helps restaurants upsell and increase the average ticket size with the help of analytics and video menus to their diners. Dine-in partner restaurants would have a QR code on the table for customers to browse through Dineout discounts through a digital menu. Binge Digital will help strengthening the digital menu Dine-in plans further.

Post-acquisition, Binge Digital cofounders Naman Jain, Prakhar Agarwal and Preksha Singla have joined the Dineout team. This includes Binge’s technology, intellectual property, domain expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning and analytics data management.

Ankit Mehrotra, CEO and cofounder, Dineout said, “With a proven record of their services for their partners through their video menus this integration will add an edge to our product. We will start offering this product eventually across all the cities we are present in over the next few months.”

Mehrotra had earlier told us that the company is now launching the product at its partner restaurants in Tier 1 cities in India, and its international locations such as UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and East Africa.

Founded in 2012 by Ankit Mehrotra, Vivek Kapoor, Nikhil Bakshi and Sahil Jain, Dineout claims to currently serve more than 20 Mn diners across 40K restaurants in 17 cities including Delhi, Mumbai among others. The company was acquired by Times Internet in April 2014.

The company offers multiple B2B and B2C services. This includes Dineout Pay, Gourmet Passport, Torqus POS, InResto etc. Mehrotra told us that over the last two years, the company has grown 6x.

“Our digital video menu showcase has helped our partner brands increase the sales of their lowest selling product by 25%. Our integration with Dine-In will be a revolutionary step in the food industry which will offer a pleasing experience to consumers and will help restaurants up their game,” said Prakhar Agarwal, cofounder, Binge Digital.

As the company integrates Binge Digital with Dine-in, Dineout aims for 300% growth this year. It is also aiming to reach 40 Mn diners this year, having launched in nine new Tier 2 cities in the last 12 months.

The National Restaurant Association of India’s India Food Services report said that the overall food services business, ‘affordable casual dining’ continues to dominate the market and is the fastest-growing vertical within the industry. The Indian food services industry has an estimated market size of INR 4.23 Lakh Cr 19 and this is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9% to reach INR 6 Lakh Cr over the next five years.

Dineout is competing against players focussed on out-dining such as Dineout, Zomato Gold (Infinite Dining included), EazyDiner, Eatigo etc.