Growth set to gather pace

BigDish Plc is an early-stage revenue-generating technology company that has developed a yield management platform for the restaurant industry. BigDish’s proprietary platform allows restaurants to maximise their sales by offering available tables to diners at a discount, primarily during off-peak hours. It offers restaurants the ability to set their discounts and availabilities best suited to the restaurants’ needs. With this reservation platform, restaurants can select the level of discount and the maximum number of discount diners for any given moment. The discount is generally between 10% and 50%, which allows the restaurants to drive diners to book at off-peak times.

• IPO: On 2 August, BigDish successfully IPO-ed on the London Main Market, raising total gross proceeds of £2.2m (£1.84m net) in a Placing of 49,391,796 shares at 4.5p per share. As part of the fundraising, BigDish has acquired Pouncer Media Ltd (Pouncer), a UK-based discount reservation platform for restaurants, based in Bournemouth, for a total consideration of $1.31m.
• Focus on increasing brand recognition and growth: BigDish currently has operations in the Philippines (Manila), Indonesia (Jakarta) and Hong Kong, as well as in the UK, where Pouncer operates. With the fundraising, it is planning to make a heavy push on its marketing and advertising effort in order to increase its brand recognition and accelerate its growth path.
• Valuation: Valuing an early-stage tech company such as BigDish is inevitably difficult in the absence of historical financials. We have therefore benchmarked BigDish against other relevant recent transactions in the sector, and this indicates a potential valuation of £24.5m-£35m (see page 29).
• Risks: As an early-stage technology company with a limited proven track record, BigDish may need to compete with other, more established market players in the restaurant reservation and discounting sector. BigDish and Pouncer have yet to reach breakeven, given their early development stage.
• Investment summary: BigDish has developed a value-added service for the restaurant industry. With operations in three countries, the company is at an inflection point where we would expect growth to gather pace as investment in marketing and advertising campaigns accelerates. BigDish’s model is easily saleable across cities and countries. It is worth noting that tech platforms such as BigDish have attracted significant interest from major players in the global consumer technology sector.