Japanese startup Retty raises $10.5m to take on Yelp

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Japan’s social restaurant review service Retty says bon appetit with the announcement of US$10.5 million in funding today. Including this round, the company has raised over US$24 million to date. The investment was led by WiL (World Innovation Lab) with Asahi Broadcasting’s venture arm, Dream Ventures, and Eight Roads Ventures Japan also participating.

Retty lets users rate and review restaurants as well as follow their Facebook friends or gourmet experts to create a personal list of restaurants to visit.

Image credit: Retty.

Users have been eating away the past year. According to The Bridge, Retty has been growing at an incredible pace. While it took the service five years to reach 10 million monthly active users (MAUs), it added another 10 million this past year alone. CEO Kazuya Takeda wants to hit 100 million by 2020.

Hunger pains

Although the company has been talking about expanding overseas for a number of years, it has yet to make a solid move. With the goal of 100 million users, it better get started soon if it wants to compete with Yelp and its 167 million MAUs. Even domestically there is debate as to which restaurant review service has the most users.

Regardless of how you play the numbers game, Retty is eating its way to the top. According to TechCrunch the team is nearly profitable on a month-to-month basis and only a few spots out of Japan’s most funded startups.

Converted from Japanese Yen. Rate: US$1 = JPY 104.74