BigDish gobbles up Philippines restaurant app Looloo

Restaurant yield management platform operator BigDish has completed the acquisition of Looloo, a web and app-based restaurant and travel discovery business focused in the Philippines, it announced on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said that the acquisition was completed following its admission to the London market on 2 August

It planned to grow its current user base in the Philippines via Looloo.

The consideration of options would “further enhance” synergies between the Looloo and BigDish platforms, its board added.

“Looloo is one of the Philippines' leading platforms in the restaurant and travel discovery space,” said BigDish chief executive officer Joost Boer.

“Founded in 2012, it contains information, recommendations and reviews on restaurants, hotels and travel in the Philippines.

“It has over 28,000 restaurants recorded, a monthly average of up to 500,000 unique visits, approximately 200,000 app installs and over 320,000 reviews.”

Across its social media platforms, Boer said Looloo had also drawn a large audience with more than 370,000 Facebook followers and “tens of thousands” of Instagram and Twitter followers which had been organically grown.

“The directors of BigDish saw great opportunity in Looloo's restaurant discovery platform and large user base, which generates revenue through paid for content with low overheads, is approaching break even and has a strong growth potential.

“There are a number of potential synergies between a discovery platform such as Looloo and the BigDish yield management platform that we will be exploring in the coming months.”