Singapore-based ride-hailing and food delivery company Grab is expanding its services beyond ride-hailing and food delivery as it focuses on Southeast Asia's competitive restaurant booking industry.
Grab has confirmed to TechCrunch that it has acquired Singapore-based restaurant booking platform Chope for an undisclosed amount.
Grab already offers a restaurant booking service in Singapore, having acquired HungryGoWhere in 2022. With 13,000 restaurants registered in Singapore and overseas on Choop (which operates in Hong Kong, China (Shanghai and Beijing), Indonesia (Bali and Jakarta)) Grab plans to significantly expand this business to differentiate itself from competitors and improve profit margins.
A Chope spokesperson said the restaurant booking platform was seeking new investment at the time the acquisition offer was tabled.
“We evaluated potential buyers and determined that Grab was the best fit – a company that aligns with our mission of connecting restaurants and diners,” a Chope spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, Choop has raised just over $64 million from investors including Alipay's parent Ant Group and Singha Ventures, the beer giant's corporate venture arm, and is estimated to be valued at about $101 million in 2022, according to Pitchbook data.
Grab sent an email to employees on Monday informing them that it had signed an agreement to acquire Chope. It said it would buy the company's Southeast Asian operations, excluding its China and Hong Kong services. The news was first reported by The Business Times, citing an internal email.
The acquisition will enable the Singapore “super app” to offer restaurant booking services across Southeast Asia, differentiating it from competitors such as GoTo and Line Man Wongnai, and a Grab spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company hopes to bring further synergies to its services. [food and beverages] Retailer partners to help capture online-to-offline opportunities through the acquisition of Chope.
“The majority of merchants on our platform are small and medium-sized businesses that don't have the resources or know-how of larger food and beverage brands. Our focus is to give them a level playing field through tools that enable them to grow and manage their business more efficiently,” a Grab spokesman said in an emailed statement.
The restaurant booking space is extremely crowded in Southeast Asia. Users can also make restaurant reservations in Asia using apps such as Open Table, Eat App, Yelp, Oddle, Resy, Tock, Odette, Quandoo and Eatigo. Also in 2022, Grab shareholder Uber launched a new feature, “Uber Explore,” allowing users in 15 cities in the US and Mexico to make dinner reservations and book live events through the app.
With so many options available today, it raises the question of whether this deal is a harbinger of more M&A and consolidation to come, or whether Grab has simply seized a particular opportunity.