Southeast Asian super app Grab Holdings has acquired Singapore-headquartered online restaurant reservation platform Chope, according to the latter’s regulatory filings.
Chope shareholders, including Ant Group and venture capital firm Square Peg Capital, transferred their shares to H Holdings Inc., an affiliate of Grab, last week, per filings with Singapore’s Accounting Corporate and Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
The development was first reported by Business Times, which cited a memo sent by Grab’s head of deliveries, Ngiam Xin Wei, to the company’s employees.
Confirming the acquisition, a Grab spokesperson said, “The vast majority of the merchants on our platform are small, medium-sized businesses who don’t have the same resources or know-how that big F&B brands have… We believe the addition of Chope’s products and services provides more synergies for our merchant-partners, especially in helping them capture online-to-offline opportunities.”
“We have proudly achieved so much on our journey, but considering today’s challenging and competitive market, we have chosen to seek a partner to help us pursue new opportunities for sustainable growth. We evaluated potential buyers and found the best fit with Grab – a company with a mission aligned to ours in connecting restaurants to diners,” said Chope founder Arrif Ziaudeen.
According to DealStreetAsia – DATA VANTAGE, Chope had raised over $56 million from investors, including Openspace Ventures, SPH Ventures and SIG. Ant Group, which first invested in the firm in 2021, was the startup’s largest shareholder, followed by Square Peg.
Top shareholders in Chope before the acquisition
The Singapore-based firm saw a leadership change in December when its founder and then-CEO Ziaudeen announced he was stepping down due to “family circumstances.” Reynold D’Silva and Dinesh Balasingam were appointed to lead the business in the interim.
The restaurant reservation platform had reported losses of $11.7 million on revenue of $22.5 million for the financial year ended December 31, 2022.
Founded in 2011, the company operates in seven cities in Southeast Asia, mainland China and Hong Kong, according to its website. The company claimed to have catered to more than 100 million diners through 9,000 restaurant partners.
Before Chope’s acquisition, Grab was reported to be in talks with Delivery Hero to acquire the German food delivery major’s Southeast Asian business. Singapore’s competition watchdog disclosed in April that it had looked into the likelihood of a deal between Grab Holdings and Delivery Hero and its impact on competition in the local food delivery market.
In February, Delivery Hero announced that it had terminated discussions with a potential buyer regarding the sale of its foodpanda business in the Southeast Asian markets of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.
Aastha Maheshwari contributed to this story.
