Taiwan-based way of life app FunNow merges with Eatigo to broaden its Southeast Asia attain

FunNow, the Taiwan-based app that lets customers ebook actions on-demand in 5 Asian international locations, is rising its attain in Southeast Asia by a merger with restaurant reserving app Eatigo. Phrases of the deal had been undisclosed, however FunNow CEO TK Chen says it’s the largest post-COVID O2O M&A deal in Southeast Asia.

As a part of the deal, Eatigo is now a key shareholder in FunNow Group. Eatigo CEO Michael Cluzel will be a part of FunNow’s board, whereas Chen will proceed serving as president and CEO of the group.

Based in 2015, FunNow has 2.5 million customers and makes use of a dynamic pricing technique that lets companies on its platform selected to supply totally different costs to clients primarily based on provide and demand. Since its launching Taiwan, FunNow has expanded to Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. It has grown by a sequence of acquisitions, concluding Malaysia restaurant reserving platform and SaaS supplier TABLEAPP and Taiwanese household exercise reserving platform Niceday. Since its inception, FunNow has raised $22.5 million from traders together with the company enterprise arms of PChome, KKday and Wistron.

FunNow and Eatigo’s founders

Eatigo was based in Bangkok in 2013 and makes use of yield administration strategies to assist 4,000 eating places ebook clients throughout off-peak hours at reductions as much as 50% off. It operates in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and has a person base of 5 million. Its traders embody TripAdvisor.

Chen tells TechCrunch that the 2 corporations determined to merge as a result of mixed they’ll have a bigger financial scale, whereas retaining their operational prices low. “F&B is kind of an essential sector for way of life and FunNow is a multi-category way of life platform,” says Chen. “We need to deal with and put extra assets in F&B since it’s the largest way of life class.”

Chen provides that the merger will double FunNow’s income. The FunNow and Eatigo apps will proceed working individually, whereas the 2 corporations’ enterprise operations shall be mixed.