FunNow, the Taiwan-based app that lets users book activities on-demand in five Asian countries, is growing its reach in Southeast Asia through a merger with restaurant booking app Eatigo. Terms of the deal were undisclosed, but FunNow CEO TK Chen says it is the largest post-COVID O2O M&A deal in Southeast Asia.
As part of the deal, Eatigo is now a key shareholder in FunNow Group. Eatigo CEO Michael Cluzel will join FunNow’s board, while Chen will continue serving as president and CEO of the group.
Founded in 2015, FunNow has 2.5 million users and utilizes a dynamic pricing strategy that lets businesses on its platform choose to offer different prices to customers based on supply and demand. Since its launch in Taiwan, FunNow has expanded to Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. It has grown through a series of acquisitions, concluding with Malaysia restaurant booking platform and SaaS provider TABLEAPP and Taiwanese family activity booking platform Niceday. Since its inception, FunNow has raised $22.5 million from investors, including the corporate venture arms of PChome, KKday and Wistron.
FunNow and Eatigo’s founders. Image Credits: FunNow
Eatigo was founded in Bangkok in 2013 and uses yield management techniques to help 4,000 restaurants book customers during off-peak hours at discounts up to 50% off. It operates in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines and has a user base of 5 million. Its investors include TripAdvisor.
Chen tells TechCrunch that the two companies decided to merge because combined they can have a larger economic scale, while keeping their operational costs low. “F&B is quite an important sector for lifestyle and FunNow is a multi-category lifestyle platform,” says Chen. “We want to focus on and put more resources in F&B since it is the largest lifestyle category.”
Chen adds that the merger will double FunNow’s revenue. The FunNow and Eatigo apps will continue operating separately, while the two companies’ business operations will be combined.