Restorando Closes $3.2M Series A Round
Emergence Capital Partners, Kaszek Ventures, Atomico and Storm Ventures Invest in the Leading Online Restaurant Reservation System in South America.
23 February — Argentina — Restorando, the leading online reservation platform for restaurants in Latin America, announced that it has secured $3.2 million in Series A funding. The funding round is led by Emergence Capital Partners, a California-based venture capital firm focused on technology enabled services, with participation from Kaszek, a newly raised fund for Latin America by the founders of Mercadolibre (NASDAQ: MELI), Atomico, the London-based firm founded by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, and Storm Ventures. Concurrent with the funding, Santi Subotovsky from Emergence Capital and Alex Mendez from Storm Ventures joined Restorando’s board of directors.
Founded in 2010, Restorando enables restaurants to develop new sales channels to promote available tables and increase revenue, while making it easy and efficient for customers to make reservations online. The company already has operations in São Paulo, Brazil and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The new funding will be used to expand into other South American markets and continue building the team.
Restorando’s angel investors are Andy Freire and Santiago Bilinkis, founders of Officenet, an office products retail business, which was acquired by Staples in 2004.
Restorando marks the first investment in South America for Emergence Capital and Storm Ventures, both of which have deep experience building successful SaaS, cloud, digital media and mobile companies. Increased adoption and activity around Restorando piqued the firm’s interest and convinced Emergence to lead this round and co-invest with the leading players in the region.
“We have a huge opportunity to create value in an industry that currently is not leveraging technology. We will enhance the experience for people dining out and increase the profitability for restaurant owners,” said Frank Martin, Restorando CEO. Franco Silvetti, the company’s COO, added, “Building a regional player following best practices and creating an impact in the region has always been our dream.”
“Emergence has been looking at companies in the region for a while, and after meeting Frank and Franco we saw Restorando had the right ingredients to build a successful company,” said Santiago Subotovsky, Principal at Emergence Capital. “The investor syndicate is the best a company could have in the region, with experienced investors such as Andy Freire, Santi Bilinkis, Alex Mendez, Hernán Kazah and Nicolás Szekasy.” Alex Mendez, Managing Director of Storm Ventures, added “Restorando represents the intersection of a great team, a large market, and a compelling value proposition — definitely a winning combination!”
Restorando currently lists more than 800 restaurants in Brazil and Argentina, generating value both for restaurant owners and diners with their innovative platform. In the first year of operations, the Restorando has seated more than 500,000 diners.
