The new investment will be used to fuel international expansion and for research and development into additional products for businesses operating in the hospitality sector.
The financing comes amid a surge in business for the company, which has benefitted from the coronavirus pandemic. Flipdish was valued at just $24.2 million as recently as July 2018 according to Pitchbook. But with consumers increasing spending on takeaways during the Covid crisis, revenues have jumped.
“Digitisation has been transforming the hospitality sector for years. The ongoing pandemic has further accelerated the trend with hospitality businesses becoming increasingly dependent on digital experiences to attract and retain customers,” said chief executive“Our investment will help us to empower more hospitality businesses around the world to grow with the best-in-class technology,” he added.
Tencent has paid appoximately $80 million for close to 8 per cent of the business. Although their shareholdings have been further diluted follwing this and the recent Tiger investment, the McCarthy brothers still have control of the board. Scoring Chinese-owned Tencent as an investor is a major coup for Flipdish. Among the companies the WeChat developer has previously backed are Didi Chuxing, Flipkart, Tesla, Lyft, Snapchat, Spotify Temasek and Uber.