365 Technologies Kicks off Series-A Funding to Bolster Market Expansion

26 Nov 2020

365 Technologies, a developer of point of sales (POS) solutions that is headquartered in Hong Kong, has kicked off a USD 6m-USD 8m Series A fundraise in order to fuel its market expansion plan, founder and Chief Executive Officer Wilson Lee said.

The upcoming fundraise will comprise up to a 20% stake sale via new share issuance, Lee elaborated, noting that the deal structure could be changed subject to further negotiation with potential investors.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand are the four major target markets under the current expansion plan, given that Eats365's F&B-based software solutions have been well-established by domestic distributors in those regions, Lee said.

Eats365's products mainly targets F&B merchants.

The majority of the Series A proceeds will be slated for sales and marketing expenses, while the rest will be set aside for software development and upgrades, he said.

The company has no rush to close the fundraise as it prefers to bring in a strategic investors with a good track record in F&B investment experience, leveraging management expertise, client network or portfolio investment to gain new customers, he said.

The software developer is receptive to approaches from financial and legal advisors with investor referrals, he said.

365 Technologies predicts to raise 150% year-on-year revenue up to March 2021, which is far below earlier expectations of a 2.5x to 3x increase, due to the lack of new restaurant start- ups amid the COVID-19 lock downs, Lee said.

The software developer declined to disclose any financial figures, but stated that it has achieved profitability.

365 Technologies started its operations in April 2014 and officially launched Eats365 in May 2017, according to Lee.

Eats365 offers a fully integrated series of modules, including POS, mPOS, Photomenu, Queue Ticket Kiosk, Queuing Signage, Pickup Signage, User App, Kitchen Display System, Expedite Display, Self- Service Kiosk and Customer Facing Display, according to its promotional materials.

Eats365 has reached thousands of merchants via direct sales and partnership with more than 50 distributers across Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia, alongside two country distributers in Thailand and New Zealand, Lee said.

The system developer has a team of 30 people, with a footprint in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, China and the US.

In addition, Lee explains that Eats365 had planned to launch a service center in Malaysia in 2020, in a bid to serve the Asian region, since Malaysia is a multilingual country with lower labor costs than Hong Kong and Singapore. However, the progress was delayed due to the pandemic, and at present, the company aims to resume the plan next year.

San Francisco, California-based Revel Systems, Boston-headquartered Toast, Montreal-based Lightspeed POS [TSE:LSPD] and Toronto-based TouchBristro can be considered as Eats365's industry peers, Lee said.

by Eva Ng and Wong Ka-chun