According to Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder, DineOut, table reservation in India is newer concept as compare to other industries. The scope is huge in this segment as today 250 million dinning instances happening in a year across 8 major cities and in next three years it is expected to reach 400 million.
Speaking about the changing trends in the Indian table reservation segment, Mehrotra said, “The table reservation trend in India is increasing. In 2012 the number was just 5 percent what it is today and over the years it’s gone up by 20 percent and by 2018-19 it is expected to grow by 40 percent. Today, due to being short of time, people do not want to wait outside the restaurant. Thus, demographics are changing and that’s leading the boom in table reservation segment.”
Prior to DineOut Mehrotra was working as investment banker in London, Sahil Jain was working at Seatle in US, Vivek Kapoor was in Merchant Navy and Nikhil Bakshi was a fund manager in New Delhi.
The inception of DineOut
All four founders studied in same school and share strong bond with each other. Mehrotra was a frequent user of table reservation services in London, but during his few visits to Delhi, he noticed that there are no such services available in India at that time.
In 2010, Mehrotra narrated this idea to Jain and he also found it very interesting. They always wanted to do something unique and innovative, thus they quit their respective jobs and returned to India.
“We started working on the idea in November 2010 and came back to India to initiate DineOut. By the September 2011, Vivek and Nikhil joined our team,” expressed Mehrotra.
DineOut started its journey in February 2012 with 75 restaurants across New Delhi through bootstrap. In last 4 years, it has grown from 75 restaurants to around 2200+ restaurants across 8 cities, including 5-star chains. Through its platform, it seats more than 100,000 diners a month and 4-5 per cent of them go to five-star restaurants.
“We started our journey in 2012 and at that time 80 percent of our transaction was coming through calls. Over the years, due to change in technology, people are evolving and nowadays we are receiving 80 percent transaction through our mobile app”, added Mehrotra.
Acquisitions & mergers
In August 2012, a customer who got so much impressed with the services of DineOut, that he became the first angel investor for the venture and that helped in expanding its reach to Mumbai market and also strengthen its tech team.
In 2014, DineOut was acquired by Times Internet’s online nightlife and restaurant guide TimesCity. In August 2015, DineOut acquired inResto, a plug and play restaurant management suite for restaurants to provide an end-to-end restaurant management platform to restaurants.
“We are always open for good businesses in restaurants space. Our vision is to solve problems in restaurant industry and anyone who can help, will be a great partner to us”, added Mehrotra.
Delhi is the biggest market for DineOut, followed by Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. It is also serving across the cities such as Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
The vision
Recently DineOut has rolled out a new service Dineout Plus. As part of the programme, members can book tables at over 150 five-star restaurants across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, and avail a Flat 25 percent discount on their total bill.
“For next two quarters, we will be focusing on our existing cities. We will try to grow our user base and number of restaurants on-board. We are also planning to expand our services to international markets,” concluded Mehrotra.
