Restaurant booking service Offpeak served $800K series A funding

Malaysia’s restaurant booking service Offpeak has received US$800,000 in a series A round, the company announced today. The funding comes from Shanghai-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners. Offpeak will put the new funds towards expansion into new markets, establishment of local teams, and boosting its marketing signal.

Offpeak provides restaurant suggestions and discounts during off-peak hours. A bit like airlines discounting tickets on their off-seasons, it helps fill chairs in that limbo between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Customers get better prices and restaurants get more value out of those traditionally slow hours.

The startup reached out to Gobi Partners because of the venture capital firm’s investment experience in the online to offline (O2O) and foods and beverages (F&B) sectors, according to co-founder Lau Ngee Keong. “From our first meeting, it was obvious there was good synergy between us, and to date we have received strong understanding and support from Gobi Partners in our business model, which we have been most pleased about,” he tells Tech in Asia.

Spicing it up in Thailand

The Offpeak team is targeting three to four new markets for expansion in the coming year, starting with Thailand. It’s an interesting change of pace for the startup, which just a few months ago was content to keep expanding within Malaysia, leaving other markets for one or two years down the road. Combined with this series A funding, things could accelerate even more.

“Initially during our launch in August 2014, we were more in an exploratory stage, but the market really surprised us,” Lau explains. “The acceptance rate from both restaurant partners and users has been phenomenal, leading us to believe that we can play a similar role as Airbnb for the F&B industry. It has certainly accelerated the rollout of our initial plans and we’re thinking of bigger and better things than we originally imagined.”

Within 10 months, Offpeak claims to have attracted over 600 restaurant partners, a 10-fold increase since launching in August. Its userbase has grown 30 times during that period (no absolute figure is provided), an average 50 percent month-on-month growth, according to Lau. He attributes this to Offpeak’s instant gratification mechanism, which allows users to book a restaurant up to 10 minutes before turning up.

“We intentionally made our platform hassle-free for users and restaurateurs alike,” he says. “This results in a win-win situation for both restaurateurs and users – steering new customers to restaurateurs by introducing new restaurants to users.”

Avoiding rush-hour

Other startups are already getting into this off-peak booking sector, which perhaps prompted the Malaysian startup to pick up its pace. Eatigo, which was a finalist at our most recent Startup Arena battle, already covers Singapore, Bangkok, and Pattaya, with plans for more cities for expansion.

Monetization is still not a priority in Offpeak’s strategy. The company has said it will focus on first expanding its user base and traffic before worrying about revenue. “In the immediate term, our primary focus is to ensure that we continue to deliver the same success in every market we expand into,” Lau says.

The time ahead will be dedicated to the company’s market expansion plans and marketing efforts, but also to improving its product. “We cannot lose sight of our core business,” Lau points out. “We will continue to enhance our customer experience on our responsive website and mobile app and improve our operations efficiency through feedback from our restaurant partners and users.”