INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Catering marketplace company ezCater is already putting its big $100 million funding round to good use
The company is acquiring GoCater, a European marketplace that operates in the same field
This is ezCater first international expansion move.If you&re in charge of ordering catered lunch at your office, you probably have heard
The company lets you order breakfast, lunch or dinner for 10, 30 or maybe 100 people at once
This service could be particularly useful to impress a client, throw an office party, get lunch together during an off-site and more.But
ezCater doesn&t cook anything itself
The company is a marketplace and connects you with catering companies and big restaurants around you
In other words, ezCater lets you browse the menu of dozens of restaurants around you from the same website and place an order without
picking up the phone.Of course, ezCater didn&t invent catering
But catering is a fragmented industry with a lot of friction
It hard to know how much you&re going to pay in advance, it takes a lot of effort to find a new restaurant outside of your usual list
And restaurants could use a new way to promote their offering
Those are the perfect ingredients to create an online marketplace.You may already know all the options around your office, but ordering
through ezCater provides additional benefits
For instance, all your receipts are centralized in the same interface, which lets you get a clear overview of your spendings on catering.You
can also let other people order food for their clients and events
ezCater lets you set maximum amounts, tipping policies and more.GoCater offers more or less the same thing, but in France and Germany
The company started as a spinoff from French startup La Belle Assiette
GoCater lets you create a whitelist of catering options
You can also set up an approval system so that the intern doesn&t order ice creams for everyone
Finally, GoCater clients only get billed once per month, even if companies order multiple times.You pay the same price if you order through
GoCater or the catering company directly
Catering companies end up paying a cut on GoCater orders
But the startup takes care of billing, accounting and accounts receivable
This way, you can focus on your core business instead of chasing money from past clients.ezCater is an order of magnitude bigger than
ezCater works with 60,000 restaurants, while GoCater only has a few hundred restaurants on its platform
It worth noting that ezCater has been around for much longer.But GoCater has one big advantage over ezCater — they have a team on the
ground in Europe, ready to attract new restaurants and corporate clients
It clear that ezCater was looking for a way to get started in Europe, and GoCater seems like the right fit.For now, the company will keep
both brands after the acquisition
The teams will slowly merge the platforms into a single product.&The entire GoCater team is staying, and we&re now going to rapidly expand
the European team of the company — both the sales team for Europe and the tech and product team for the group,& GoCater founder and CEO
Stephen Leguillon told me.
