TripAdvisor acquires Australian restaurant bookings site Dimmi

Overseas companies are taking note of Australian digital start-ups and, according to Dimmi chief executive Stevan Premutico, they can not get enough.

Dimmi chief executive Stevan Premutico

Restaurant booking website Dimmi was snapped up by TripAdvisor on Wednesday – the second big deal in the restaurant technology space this month. 

Sources told The Australian Financial Review that the start-up, which was backed by Telstra and Village Roadshow, was sold for about $25 million.

Mr Premutico would not confirm the sale price, but said in the past two years Australian businesses had started to garner more attention from international firms.

"The global venture capitalists and merger and acquisition guys are starting to take note of Aussie businesses," he said. "Eighteen months ago we started to get a lot of approaches from international players, but we weren't ready to engage at that time."

Mr Premutico said he created Dimmi with the mind to sell it. "I only ever had one vision for Dimmi and that was to create a business I was proud of, one that made a difference in the Australian landscape, and then to pass it onto a good home," he said.

"When TripAdvisor reached out I had two 60 minute chats with the chief executive Stephen Kaufer and the deal was done. I admired his passion and enthusiasm for the restaurant sector and for building world-class products."

Bookable

Dimmi has a network of more than 2500 bookable restaurants, including Ester, Cutler & Co, Rockpool and Flower Drum. Bookings through Dimmi have increased 160 per cent year-on-year and the company is forecasting $10 million in revenue this year.

Prior to the complete sale to travel review website TripAdvisor Mr Premutico held a majority of Dimmi, which he established in 2009. Telstra and Village Roadshow (through its business MyFun), held 15 and with 19 per cent respectively, while other private investors include LinkedIn's Australia head Clifford Rosenberg and Tatts Group chief executive Robbie Cooke.

Earlier this month takeaway ordering platform Menulog sold to Britain's Just Eat for $855 million, a deal Mr Premutico said was well-deserved.

"They've created a phenomenal business and they deserved a great outcome ... they got a good price," he said.

Dimmi will be merged into TripAdvisor's restaurant division, known as The Fork in Europe, which is the continent's leading restaurants booking site.

TripAdvisor chief executive Stephen Kaufer said Australia was an important market for the website.

"Combining Dimmi's national restaurant network with TripAdvisor's local and global community of travellers will allow us to deliver more seated diners to Australian restauranteurs," he said.

Dimmi's recent growth has been spurred by increased mobile adoption. In Australia the site has seated more than 12 million diners, but it only has a 10 per cent market share of bookings. Simply calling up a restaurant remains the dominate way of reserving a table.

Mr Premutico said the TripAdvisor acquisition would help Dimmi reach its short-term goal of 25 per cent market share within the next 24 months, and 50 per cent in the future.

"Ninety per cent of our traffic is domestic, but we see a significant opportunity from international travellers," he said.

The Massachusetts-based TripAdvisor also bought Viator in July, which was the fourth acquisition it made in 2014, following The Fork (La Fourchette), Tripbod, and Vacation Home Rentals.

Meanwhile the online marketplace for artist-designed products, RedBubble, has raised $15.5 millon from a consortium of investors in an oversubscribed capital raising. 

Investors include Acorn Capital and London-based Piton Capital.

Source : SMH    Yolandra Redrup   May 20th 2015