Chope it! Late last year, we heard about the potential foodpanda acquisition by Grab. Well, that didn’t happen.

But Grab just acquired a startup, and it’s Singapore-founded Chope!

• What’s the deal? They didn't disclose how much Chope was acquired for.

‍

🍲 Who’s Chope?

Founded in 2011, they’re an app that lets you reserve tables at restaurants or cafes.

• It’s available in seven cities, specifically Singapore, Jakarta, Bali, Bangkok, Phuket, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
• They have seated over 110M diners and have over 13,000 restaurants on their platform.

Numbers, numbers. Their investors include Square Peg, Singha Ventures, Openspace, and Singapore Press Holdings.

• Their last round was a $15M Series E from Alipay (in the form of a partnership) and another $10.6M Series E, both in 2021.

‍

⁉️ Wait, but why?

For their customers. Grab thinks that Chope’s services will level up their relevance as the “preferred everyday super app” for their customers.

For businesses. It’s great for SME businesses on Grab too, who don’t have access to the same resources that big F&B brands have. So, something like Chope helps empowers merchants to grow and manage their businesses more effectively—like accessing more online-to-offline opportunities.

For strategy. Grab has an omni-commerce strategy, so acquiring Chope will help them capture more opportunities for those dining out physically.

It’s also not the first time Grab has made a similar acquisition—they acquired F&B portal HungryGoWhere in 2022.

‍

🔜 What’s next?

Grab will be taking over Chope’s Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand operations.