Hospitality ordering platforms Mr Yum and Me&u are exploring a possible merger as their fast ascent throughout Covid begins to plateau submit pandemic.
A spokesperson for Mr Yum confirmed to Startup Day by day that talks are at the moment underway.
“Mr Yum confirms that it’s in preliminary discussions with me&u relating to a possible merger to speed up the expansion of each firms,” they mentioned.
“Conversations are within the very early levels and no selections have been made. Mr Yum is not going to be making any additional remark right now.”
In March, Mr Yum reduce 40 roles on the firm.
CEO and cofounder Kim Teo mentioned in asserting the redundancies that they’d made “the strategic choice to get to profitability with our present money reserves and management our future”.
Whereas the QR-code startup, based in November 2018, practically doubled its ordering income final yr and grew general firm income by 2.7 instances following its acquisition of Melbourne startup MyGuestlist and it subsidiary CRM platform Sprout 12 months in the past, Mr Yum additionally shed 17% of its workforce – round 40 jobs – final August, with Teo saying on the time that that they had “elevated our headcount too rapidly” and people redundancies had been “to increase our runway whereas capital markets stay unsure”.
Mr Yum raised $89 million in a Sequence A, led by US VC large Tiger World in November 2021 – and $100 million in whole over six months.
In the meantime, rival pub meal ordering platform Me&u raised $30 million in December final yr in a spherical led by Acorn Capital that purportedly give sthe 3.5-year-old startup sufficient runway to get to profitability subsequent monetary yr. Particulars of the elevate – the corporate was reportedly seeing as much as $50 million – solely emerged final month.
Me&u has raised a complete of $66 million.
Its backers embody Merivale CEO Justin Hemmes, with the app rolled out throughout his Sydney accommodations empire, chef Neil Perry, City Purveyor Group founder John Szangolies, and former Fb, Uber, MYOB and Google execs William Easton, Mike Abbott, Tim Reed, and Jason Pellegrino.
Me&u is the sector’s 800-pound gorilla, with 70% market share of the nation’s prime pub teams in comparison with 20% for Mr Yum and 10% for others.