Dining Code a Korean startup providing restaurant recommendation services has secured US$1.7m (KRW 2b) investment from Posco Technical Investment, ID Ventures, Seoul Investment Partners, HBIC and Magellan Technical Investment. The company had also received a seed investment amount of US$170k (KRW 200m) from K Cube Ventures in July 2014.

Dining Code sources reliable restaurant data from tens of thousands of different blogs. The information used by the platform removes biases of personal opinion and advertisements and ranks the restaurants based on the best reviews.  Since launching in December 2013, Dining Code has increased by 20% each month and currently has about 60,000 visits per month.

Shin Hyo Seop from Dining Code commented, “With this investment, efforts will be focused on the development of Dining Code 2.0. Firstly, we will increase the restaurant count in our database. This exercise will be completed by extending the functionality of the existing data algorithms.  Secondly, we will provide users with a unique experience that only Dining Code can provide. The improvements will be based on the numerous feedback we have received from our users with their preferences in the types of restaurants they fancy. Our aim is to take out the worry of ‘What to eat today?’ from our users and provide a platform that provides a constant source of top restaurants”.

A representative of the investors commented, “Among the restaurant recommendation platforms, Dining Code is the leader by volume of traffic. With a steady foundation, the company has great potential to expand. The technical aspect of analyzing data associated with restaurant reviews has developed from a source of information to a part of everyday life. This great potential has given us the confidence to invest into Dining Code”.