Will Eat And The City be the Google of restaurants? Raises €3.3 million funding

There are millions of restaurants around the world, but you can only reserve a table or order food to home from fraction of them. People around the world are searching for places to eat more and more online, but nobody is assembling a database of them globally.

Until now.

Finnish media startup Eat And The City announced it has raised €3.3M to expand its white label restaurant discovery platform. The investment round was led by the Wallstreet Group and included Gorilla Ventures, Arteel Ventures, Tekes and angel investors.

– Eat And The City is a kind of a Google for restaurants. The idea is to collect the fragmented information to one place, so that customers do not have to search it all over Internet. At the same time we are creating site where customer can do table reservation as  well as pre-order in one view, tells Ilkka Lavas, CEO of City Digital Ltd.

“The AI-powered platform combines feedback from journalists, food critics and local users into unbiased reviews”

Eat And The City helps users discover and book great eating experiences in their city. The AI-powered platform combines feedback from journalists, food critics and local users into unbiased reviews of nearby restaurants and takeaways. Digital media companies can in turn generate new revenue through white label integration as a trusted source of information for local eating experiences.

– Eat And The City was originally created to serve customers in Finland. We noticed that a number of media companies were interested in restaurant discovery portals, as they would be able to leverage their connection with local communities to deliver a genuinely useful service and an additional revenue stream. Our service was validated in our eyes when we started winning awards. Our aim is to help media networks take local restaurant discovery into the mainstream across the world,” says Lavas, CEO of City Digital, Cofounder of Eat And The City.

Eat And The City’s first international media partner is Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “We are impressed with the work and success that Eat And The City has done in Finland and we are happy to co-operate here in Munich”, says Dirk von Gehlen, Director Social Media / Innovation at Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

“The platform collaborates with many leading companies, including Michelin’s Bookatable, HERE mapping service, and Wolt delivery”

Eat And The City’s white label platform collaborates with many leading companies, including Michelin’s Bookatable, HERE mapping service, and Wolt delivery.

The company has offices in Helsinki, Berlin, London, Sheffield and Tallinn, and is set for further international expansion to become the world’s leading local restaurant discovery platform.

Additional information

• Eat and the city’s web site
• Test Eat And the city at the Finnish site
• Ilkka Lavas on LinkedIn