Restaurant yield management platform BigDish admitted to trading

Restaurant yield management platform operator BigDish announced on Thursday that its ordinary shares had been admitted to the standard listing segment of the official list of the UK Listing Authority, and to trading on the London Stock Exchange's main market for listed securities under the ticker 'DISH’.

The firm said that on admission, it had 285,847,519 ordinary shares at a listing price of 4.5p per share.

Aidan Bishop, founder and chairman of BigDish, said it was an “important milestone” for the company, as it looked forward to further developing its business within South East Asia and in the United Kingdom.

“As a technology company we will also continue to innovate in order to further meet the needs of our restaurant partners and consumers,” Bishop said.

“Yield management is a dynamic pricing strategy that charges different prices at different times for the same product.

“It was introduced in the 1970s by American Airlines and transformed the way airline seats are sold.”

Bishop said the hotel industry was the next to quickly adopt yield management, which he claimed worked wherever there were fixed overheads and perishable inventory.

“The restaurant sector has traditionally been a late adopter of technology and we believe this represents an opportunity for disruption.

“A restaurant has fixed overheads yet perishable inventory - tables - and empty tables make no money.

“Yield management uses incentive to change behaviour.”

BigDish allowed restaurants to shape their traffic and bring in more diners at off-peak or quieter periods by using smart incentives that brought in new customers and additional revenue, Bishop explained.

“BigDish started life in Manila as a restaurant discount card but we soon discovered this was an old fashioned and outdated model with barriers to achieving scale and generated little data.

“We made the decision to pivot in mid 2016 after noting a yield management platform in New York that grew rapidly and was acquired by Groupon.

“That was the beginning for us and we began developing a whole suite of new products.”

Bishop added that the food technology sector was a “hot space” to be in, and its yield management platform was said to have a “particular niche” that was gaining traction.

“Companies such as TripAdvisor and AirBnB have made recent investments in young early stage food tech startups and that trend looks likely to continue.

“We believe that we have the right team, in the right place with the right product to develop an exciting business.”