OrderYOYO raises €5.4 million in Series A round
The food take-away scene has seen a massive change over the last 10 years, where third-party delivery portals, like Just-Eat have changed how we order our preferred weekly cheat meal or hangover cure. But the Danish startup OrderYOYO have a mission: they want to give the power back to the restaurants. And after a successful series A funding round led by VF Ventures along with additional investments from existing investors SEED Capital, Preben Damgaard and Jesper Johansen they are one step closer to their goal.
OrderYOYO is a company that enables restaurants to reclaim their customers from companies like Just-Eat or Hungry. As one of the leading white-label product suppliers on the market in Europe, OrderYOYO delivers customized websites or plug-ins to existing websites and android or IOS apps for the restaurants.
The idea is the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Thor Angelo and Thomas Paulsen, who discovered a very telling trend in how people ordered their take away. They learned that 80% of the orders from take-away restaurants came from returning customers. People returned to the same place every week and some of them even ordered the same thing from the menu. So why should the restaurants give away up to 20% or more of their income to portals like Just-eat? That marked the birth of OrderYOYO.
The company was founded in 2014, and with Thor as the CEO, OrderYOYO has experienced a rapid growth over the years, which now has resulted in a Series A funding of €5.4 million. We first invested in Thor and OrderYOYO in 2015, and now we have invested once more. Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack, Managing Partner in SEED Capital, explains how Thor and his team was a big part of the decision to invest again:
“Thor has shown absolute relentless stamina. The unit economics adds up and that is mainly due to his hard work as CEO. Thor and his team have managed to build a scalable business with a solid economy, and they have managed to prove their value proposition and shown to be a very relevant player in both Britain and in Denmark. We look forward to help expanding OrderYOYO even further — they provide a great service and have a great go-to-market strategy.”
The last time OrderYOYO raised funding was in 2016 and they have now raised a total of €9.7 million. It makes sense that the investors are looking to reinvest because OrderYOYO has experienced quite the growth journey since 2016. While they tripled their revenue from 2016 to 2017, they now provide instrumental assistance to more than 2.000 restaurants in all over Britain, Ireland, Denmark, and Germany.
Preben Damgaard and Jesper Johansen, who also reinvested in OrderYOYO this time, are no strangers to accelerating promising Danish growth companies. Preben Damgaard sold Navision to Microsoft in 2002 and has since then been a diligent and successful investor. Jesper Johansen has held Chairman seats in both Mofibo and Plenti and is also Chairman of OrderYOYO. Preben Damgaard is extremely pleased with the promise OrderYOYO has shown so far:
“Even though technology will keep changing the world, there is no certain recipe for success. All companies are unique and at the end of the day, it’s the people behind the companies, their approach, and leadership that makes the difference. OrderYOYO has an absolute stunner of a team, and when you combine that with the superior idea of giving customers back to thousands of restaurants and giving them an opportunity to earn more money, you are on to something. I’m very pleased to be a part of expanding OrderYOYO to all of Europe.”
