The acquisition is part of Recruit’s strategy of acquiring other lifestyle companies including travel, dining and beauty
Japan’s Recruit has acquired Quandoo, an online restaurant reservation platform operating mainly in Germany and other countries in the EU, for US$219 million.
Started in 2012, the app allows diners to choose a restaurant based on their preferences, book a table and pay through it. It is comparable to OpenTable in the United States and its user interface is similar. It operates in Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Poland and other countries.
Despite criticisms that it is a copycat app that hasn’t innovated much on OpenTable’s model from 1998, Recruit said in its statement that it believes Quandoo has a lot of growth potential. This is because the number of online restaurant reservations account for only approximately 16 per cent of total reservations in Europe, including those made by phone.
According to Quandoo’s latest stats, the reservation website and app claims to have partnered with over 6,000 diners and has seated over 6 million people in 13 countries.
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Recruit is one of the several Japanese companies that are flushed with cash and have embarked on an M&A spree overseas. The Wall Street Journal attributes this expansion trend to the fact that Japan’s domestic population is shrinking.
Recruit started out in the 1960s connecting job seekers with potential employers. Since then, it has expanded into making matches in the HR, education, travel, real estate, and now dining sectors.
In today’s statement Recruit announced that its long term vision is to become the world’s top “matching platform.” It plans to become the world leader in the marketing media business by 2030 and the number one global HR business by 2020.
The acquisition of Quandoo, Recruit said, is part of a strategy of acquiring other lifestyle companies including travel, dining and beauty.
In fact, in the last four years, Recruit has acquired US-based Staffmark Holdings and Advantage Resourcing for a combined total of US$700 million. It also bought US job search website Indeed.com for US$1 billion. In addition, Recruit has made a minority investment in the UK-based Hotspring Ventures, a spa and salon booking platform.
In light of this history, Recruit’s latest foray into food reservations is easy to swallow. The food tech space is heating up right now. If you want to be a matchmaker for everything, what better than to match people with their daily sustenance?
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