SUMMARY
The Funding Will Allow Mobikon To Launch Operations In Australia And The UK By Early Next Year
Restaurant solutions provider Mobikon has raised $7 Mn in a Series B funding round led by Sistema Asia Fund, C31 Ventures and Qualgro. The Series B funding round also saw participation from existing investors, Spring Singapore and Jungle Ventures.
The restaurant solutions startup will be using the funding to scale up its operations in India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The investment will enable Mobikon to penetrate deeper into its existing markets in India, Philippines, Singapore, and the UAE, in the next 12-18 months.
A portion of the Series B financing will also go into setting up operations in the UK and Australia by January 2018.
Commenting on the development, Samir Khadepaun, co-founder and CEO of Mobikon said, “We are very excited about this major round of funding. It will help us scale faster and strengthen our products across key markets. With Sistema Asia Fund and C31 Ventures coming onboard, it will help us to further strengthen our market leadership positioning in customer engagement and marketing. Besides funding, Sistema Asia Fund (SAF) and C31 Ventures bring in other distinct advantages. This would help us in our aim to attain market leadership position in the said geography.”
Mobikon: End-To-End Restaurant Solutions Provider
Founded in 2012 by Samir Khadepaun, Pune and Singapore-based Mobikon is an end-to-end restaurant solutions provider with specialised tools for customer engagement, marketing, analytics and business operations.
Mobikon’s platform mEngage serves as a single dashboard for the entire spectrum of restaurant services such as quick service, fine dining, casual dine and cafes, intelligent engagement with customers, with integration across ordering, reservations, feedback, payments and marketing platforms.
From a team of six, the company has grown into a global player with a presence in nine countries including India, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. The restaurant solutions startup currently services over 700 restaurants and 3,400 food outlets. Mobikon’s proprietary platform has engaged more than 9.2 Mn customers and powered 3.5 Mn reviews.
Its clientele includes Shakey’s Pizza in Manila, Bistro Group Manila, Leopold’s of London in UAE, LiteBite Foods India, and Pan India Foods, among others.
With a growth rate of nearly 200%, Mobikon is managed by a team of 70 people in 7 offices around Asia. Prior to the current Series B round of funding, Mobikon raised an undisclosed amount of Seed funding in 2012. The restaurant solutions player also secured $2.3 Mn Series A funding from Jungle Ventures, Life.SREDA, Qualgro, Spring Singapore and Lion Rock in July 2015.
Later in October the same year, Mobikon raised another $2.7 Mn from Life.SREDA, a Singapore-based venture capital firm specialising in Series A, B and C investments and Qualgro.
Commenting on the latest funding round, Jason Edwards, co-founder of Mobikon’s existing investor Qualgro VC said, “Mobikon provides a unique platform for F&B outlets to capture data, get feedback, perform analytics and improve marketing. It helps them to use technology to drive improvements in customer service, marketing, and increase revenue. Larger franchises are also seeing the benefits this can bring to their business and we are excited to be a part of this journey.”
Over the last two years, Mobikon has made two acquisitions geared towards facilitating growth and expansion. These include Triibe, a marketing platform for the food and beverage industry, and Mumbai-based social and marketing solutions provider MassBlurb. Mobikon also made a strategic investment in online gifting platform for alcohol and coffee Hipcask in 2016.
Sistema Asia Fund: Facilitating Tech Startups In Indian Subcontinent
Sistema Asia Fund is the proprietary VC fund of Russian conglomerate Sistema Joint Stock Financial Corporation. Headquartered in Moscow, Sistema JSFC has businesses in a variety of sectors such as telecommunications, retails, pulp and paper, healthcare, utilities, railway transportation, pharmaceuticals, mass media, finance, tourism and agriculture.
Sistema JSFC currently boasts a consolidated revenue of more than $12 Bn. The Sistema Asia Fund was created two years ago to support up-and-coming startup in technology and niche consumer-centric segments in the Indian subcontinent, the company
Speaking about the latest Series B funding round in Mobikon, Dhruv Kapoor, Managing Director of Sistema Asia Fund Advisory added, “Sistema Asia Fund is excited to partner with Mobikon in its remarkable journey to build a global customer engagement and analytics platform for F&B industry. What Samir and his team have achieved so far is truly remarkable. Over 700 brands spanning over 3400 outlets in 9 countries, all use Mobikon’s platform to interact and engage with over 8.5 million customers. With fresh investments coming in, I am confident that the Mobikon team would go full steam in their scale up plans.”
Overview Of Mobikon Competitors In India
In India, Mobikon competes with players like Delhi-based POSist, SaaS solutions provider for restaurants LimeTray, Blynk, and Chennai-headquartered Zoho, among others. In the first week of August, LimeTray raised an undisclosed amount of funding from JSW Ventures. The newly-secured capital will reportedly be used to further develop the company’s ‘restaurant OS.’
In October last year, Bengaluru-based Trilyo, a B2B SaaS company with solutions for restaurants secured an undisclosed amount of funding in Seed round. The round was led by a Singapore-based private investor and backed by members of Amplifi Angel Group including Vishnu Bhat (Bengaluru-based entrepreneur and former SVP of Infosys); Mumbai-based entrepreneur Rajiv Lunkad, and Dubai-based Naresh Ravindranath.
A month prior to that, Delhi-based IdeaChakki, a foodtech venture, raised funding from Ratan Tata. The startup provides digital video menus for restaurants and allows customers to gift food and beverage experiences anywhere in the world.
With the latest Series B investment from Sistema Asia Fund and others, restaurant solutions startup Mobikon hopes to not just maintain its growth rate at 200%, but also expand its operations to established markets in Australia and the UK.
