Big Fish Ventures, a Delhi-based startup that runs premium dining lounges such as Vault Cafe and GaramDharam in the capital, has launched a mobile application for its customers making reservations, point redemptions and availing promotional offers just a click away.
The company that has a wide range of restaurant brands across formats under its umbrella including Junkyard cafe, OTB and Three Pegs Down sees an opportunity to cater to its 60,000 customer base who frequent their restaurants every month in a better way.
Big Fish Ventures' move may set the trend for such restaurant chains developing their own apps and eventually posing a new competition to the specialized dining and reservation app industry having players like Zomato, Dineout, Easydiner and Reserveyourtable, who so far compete among themselves.
"We will bring over 2 lakh customers on our mobile app over next 4 to 5 months and will be doing over 3000 table reservations per day by March 2016. We plan to invest over 3-4 million dollars over next 3 years," said Big Fish Ventures founder Mr. Umang Tewary.
The app available on Google play store and Apple Store will regularly update its customers about promotional activities and events at the restaurant.
"Most firms are focused on creating single brands with standardised formats like, for example, a McDonald's or a KFC. We are building a cluster of concept--based different brands across genres and large formats," Tewari added.
Big Fish has roped in Nishant Singhal, cofounder of startup venture fund YouWeCan Ventures along with cricketer Yuvraj Singh, as its chief mentor. Singhal, who has picked up a minority stake in Big Fish advises the firm to create an investment vehicle across cuisines and concepts in the restaurant and eating out space.
The company aims to create, build and operate over 40 outlets by FY 17-18 under brands created by them. Big Fish plans to invest over 200 crores in building our outlets and will clock gross sales of over 500 crores by FY 18-19.
He said funds of Rs 50-60 crore for the first eight stores are already in place and that Big Fish intends to be operating 8-10 large format stores of 5,000-8,000 square feet by the year end.
With some brands in operation and new launches in pipeline, Big Fish will clock sales of over 50 crores in FY 15-16 and over 150 crores in FY 16-17. Big Fish currently employs over 500 people across restaurants and logistics and back-end space.