Customer engagement platfrom Mobikon raises $7M in funding

Mobikon, a marketing and customer engagement platform in the Food & Beverages (F&B) industry, on Monday, announced that it had raised $7 million in Series-B funding from a three-member investor consortium -- Sistema Asia Fund (Proprietary fund of Russia’s conglomerate, Sistema JSFC), C31 Ventures (Singapore) and Qualgro. This round also saw participation from existing investors Jungle Ventures & Spring Singapore.

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Set up by Samir Khadepaun in 2012, Mobikon’s platform mEngage helps restaurants with a single view of customers across ordering, reservations, feedback, payments, social media, website and marketing channels. The company provides a single dashboard for a spectrum of restaurant services including; quick service, fine dine, casual dine and cafes, intelligent engagement with customers, with integration across ordering, reservations, feedback, payments and marketing 

Mobikon has also made two acquisitions in the last two years, which include trii.be, a marketing platform for the food and beverage industry, and Mumbai-based social and marketing solutions provider MassBlurb.

Prior to the current round of funding, Mobikon had raised seed funding in 2012 and Series-A funding, amounting to $5 million from Jungle Ventures, Life.Sreda, Qualgro, Spring Singapore, and Lion Rock, in 2015. The capital raised by the company from new and existing investors now totals $12 million.

Mobikon currently has presence in six countries, including countries like India, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. It claims to have 700 restaurants brands with over 3,400 outlets globally.

The company claims that its platform usage has increased multifold, and now powers over 1,60,000 in-store reviews per month, having over 8.8 million unique diner profiles.

Last year, restaurants have engaged over 17.8 million diners on the platform. Some of the leading brands in its kitty are LiteBite Foods India, Pan India Foods, Pind Baluchi, Oriental Group, Billion Smiles, JP group and Speciality Restaurants.

Speaking on the latest round of funding, Samir, Co-founder and CEO of Mobikon said,

We are excited with this major round of funding. It will help us scale faster and strengthen our products across key markets. Besides funding, Sistema Asia Fund (SAF) and C31Ventures bring in other distinct advantages. While SAF has great knowledge in building scalable teams, C31Ventures has strong inroads across Southeast Asia. This would help us in our aim to attain market leadership position in the said geography.

Sector overview and future plans

According to a report by Research and Markets, the global food-tech market is expected to grow to over $250.43 billion by 2022. Zomato and Swiggy are the two leading players in India when it comes to food ordering. Dineout and Zomato offer reservations and rating solutions. Then there are players like NearBuy, which provides hyperlocal in-bound marketing solutions.

Mobikon plans to launch operations in the UK and Australia by January 2018 and double the number of restaurants on its platform over the next one year. The company claims to have witnessed more than 200-percent growth in FY 2015-2016 and has set an estimated growth rate target of 200 percent for the next financial year. 

Mobikon also plans to utilise the latest round of funding to scale up its business in India, Southeast Asia and Middle East and penetrate deeper into existing markets and build the next level of leadership team in India, UAE, the Philippines, and Singapore and new markets like United Kingdom (UK) and Australia in the next 12-18 months.

 Website- Mobikon