Is it just me or food-related applications getting much love from the Singapore community of late? We were entirely taken aback when the news broke that SingTel (ASX:SGT) acquired Singapore’s food recommendation site, HungryGoWhere.com, for S$12 million (US$9.4 million).
According to SingTel, GTW Holdings Private Limited (GTW), the holding company of HungryGoWhere.com, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel. Operations-wise, it will be merged with inSing.com, a Singapore lifestyle and local search site, which is also a subsidiary of Singtel.
Food bonds people together, and that’s especially true in Asia. With this acquisition, SingTel is attempting to make it easier for people to find, rate, and book restaurants in a personalized way. Users can expect to get access to over 100,000 restaurant reviews, deals, and discounts. They can also have convenient access information from their mobile devices on over 15,000 restaurants currently on board with HungryGoWhere.com.
On the acquisition, Mr Dennis Goh, the founder and managing director of HungryGoWhere, said,
We are delighted to be joining the inSing.com and SingTel family. This deal allows our award-winning content to be seen by even more people in the region and will accelerate the investment and distribution of our new online restaurant reservation system.
Its new online restaurant reservation system, the TableBD reservation platform, allows restaurant owners to take and manage reservations, and improve productivity in restaurants through TableDB’s customer relationship management (CRM) tools. With the acquisition and merger of both HungryGoWhere.com and inSing.com sites, they are looking to provide a one-stop shop for restaurant reviews, deals, and reservations.
Its new service sounds pretty similar to what Chope is offering, and I wonder what other food applications, such as Burpple and Buffet Mania, are looking at this acquisition. Will the startups in the food apps space be merging to take on the bigger boys? Let us know your thoughts on the acquisition below.
[Singtel via @danielgoh]
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