Airbnb has led a $13 million round of funding in restaurant booking app Resy, after recently forming a new partnership that will allow users to book restaurant tables through Airbnb last year.
Resy, which was founded in March 2014 and is reportedly valued at about $70 million, has around 1,000 restaurants in its network, while its larger rival OpenTable works with around 40,000. Resy's modus operandi is to target high-end restaurants and use customer data to improve the restaurants ability to serve repeat customers, reports The Wall Street Journal. The restaurant-booking app has seen strong growth over the past year with seat bookings reaching 1.5 million per month.
"We can curate the restaurants list for each customer so that you’ll see only choices that are really good for you,” said Resy chief executive Ben Leventhal. He added that the funding will help Resy to expand to new markets and test software functions. It is also experimenting with software like the Apple Watch by working with Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer with the goal of improving front-of-house service.
When announcing the partnership, Airbnb revealed plans to allow users to book experiences such as cooking classes or go truffle hunting with local guides and city tours via its 'Experiences' service as well as airplane tickets reports Eater.com.
