Grab acquires S’pore restaurant reservation platform Chope

Grab has acquired home-grown restaurant reservation platform Chope and will take over the company’s operations in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.

In an internal e-mail seen by The Business Times on Monday (22 July), Grab’s head of deliveries, Ngiam Xin Wei, informed staff that Chope’s employees are set to join Grab’s offices in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand “in a couple of weeks”. 

Following the acquisition, both Grab and Chope will work together “to build a stronger, more holistic online-to-offline value proposition for merchants and users in Southeast Asia.”

Grab sees “a lot of potential” to extend Chope’s services to its merchant-partner base across the region and intends to start cross-selling these services soon. However, the Chope brand, app and website will remain as they are for now, to avoid disruption to Chope’s services for merchants and users.

No roles in Grab will be made redundant as a result of the acquisition, but Ngiam emphasised that the success of the acquisition relies on the “strong collaboration between the Grab and Chope teams”, and urged employees to provide “full support in (their) various capacities to help make this transition a smooth and seamless one”.

The acquisition will also strengthen Grab’s position as the “preferred everyday superapp” for consumers.

“Chope is a well-known and well-loved brand that operates in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand,” Ngiam said in the e-mail. “They have mature reservations and table management system, which we believe will bolster our omni-commerce strategy, and help accelerate our efforts to capture the dining out opportunity.”

Chope has seated over 35 million diners to date

Founded in 2011 by entrepreneur Arrif Ziaudeen, Chope enables diners to make online reservations for restaurants across Singapore, Jakarta, Bali, Bangkok, Phuket, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. However, Grab will retain its operations only in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand following the acquisition.

According to Chope’s website, it has more than 13,000 restaurants in its network and has seated over 35 million diners to date. The platform has enabled over 5,000 restaurant partners to manage their online and offline reservations, table inventory, incoming calls, queues, and prepayment within the Chope app.

In 2022, Chope generated approximately US$22.7 million in revenue, marking a 31 per cent increase from the previous year. Despite this growth, the business’s losses totalled US$11.2 million, representing a 64.4 per cent increase.

The same year, the platform laid off 24 per cent of all its employees from across its offices in the SEA region, including 38 workers in Singapore as the company doubled down on its “focus on efficiency”.

Most recently, Ziaudeen stepped down as the company’s CEO in December 2023 due to “family circumstances”, but he continues to serve as the company’s Executive Chairman, leading its corporate finance, strategy and board direction.

Featured Image Credit: Grab/ Chope