Seoul-based restaurant recommendation service MangoPlate secured 6.7 billion won ($6 million) in funding from a group of global investors of Qualcomm Ventures, Softbank Ventures Korea, and YJ Capital, the venture investment unit of Yahoo Japan. With the latest investment, the total amount of funding received by MangoPlate so far has exceeded 8 billion won($8 million).
MangoPlate launched its service in October 2013 at SparkLabs’ 2nd Demo Day. MangoPlate helps its users find restaurants through personalized restaurant recommendations. The service analyzes restaurant data, individual preferences and social networks to provide personal dining recommendations rather than being a simple directory of restaurants. MangoPlate’s platform allows users to provide reviews and photos about their dining experience, providing more transparent and reliable information than paid blog posts.
Director of Qualcomm Ventures, James Kwon, said, “Food-tech is a new industry with great potential. With its investor base and funding to date, we believe MangoPlate is well positioned to become a new icon in Korea’s food-tech industry.”
MangoPlate’s Representative Director, Kim Dae-woong said, “I’m really honored to receive investments from such leading global investors; Qualcomm Ventures, YJ Capital, and Softbank Ventures Korea.” Also he added “With the additional funds, MangoPlate will focus more on customer acquisition, feature enhancement and POI expansion throughout the country. Furthermore, MangoPlate will continue to enhance its services with additional features such as group dining recommendations in which users would be able to receive customized recommendations for a group of people by calculating common tastes.“
In 2014, MangoPlate was funded by TIPS, a technology startup support program by the Small and Medium Business Administration and also has received funding from SparkLabs Global and Softbank Ventures Korea.
MangoPlate is an app that delivers customized recommendations for diners from over 250,000 restaurants in Korea. Its algorithm is designed to take into account each user’s food preferences, personal profile, as well as the profiles of people in his or her social networks.
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