A HOSPITALITY technology company has announced plans for rapid business growth and a host of innovations and product advancements.
It comes as Edinburgh-based ePOS Hybrid raised almost £750,000 in a second seed fund round following a period of growth despite challenging market conditions.
The firm was founded by entrepreneur Bhas Kalangi, who said: “The demand from investors for our second seed round has been overwhelming.
“We’ve attracted a lot of institutional investors who are looking to engage in negotiations despite the round being closed. The money raised will help us pave the way for a period of aggressive hyper-growth across our customer base, our revenues and also across our product innovation.”
A total of 329 backers joined the latest round bringing in £634,652 through the Crowdcube platform – much of it from repeat supporters and existing network - and a further £100,000 from an angel investor.
Andrew Gibbon, ePOS Hybrid head of growth, said the firm was "able to innovate and thrive throughout the pandemic, despite the hospitality industry grinding to a halt”.
“We were able to achieve a very strong product market fit, and deliver the right solutions to our customers at a time where they needed them the most,” he said. “However, outlets are still trying to recover from the effects of Covid but now face skyrocketing operational costs and staff shortages. A huge challenge is the dependence on third-party delivery platforms, who charge up to 35% commission. For many that is unsustainable.
“We’ve made it incredibly easy - and affordable - for restaurants and takeaways to roll out the kind of online presence, digital ordering, tracking, and simple payment systems that are associated with the biggest players.
“Our customers can take back control of their businesses, including when it comes to online ordering. We estimate our customers have saved at least £2.1m that would otherwise have been paid in third party commissions.”
The tech company has created platform for payments, digital ordering and operations management to create a centralised management hub for food and drink businesses.
New coach service bids to shake up Scottish travel sector
A NEW inter-city coach service has entered the Scottish market, promising cut-price fares and a greener mode of transport than cars and planes.
German-owned FlixBus launched its Scottish operation yesterday with a new daily service connecting Glasgow and Aberdeen, with ticket prices starting at 99p for the month of August.
Scottish energy firm to support Swedish state-owned renewables giant's portfolio
A SCOTTISH energy contractor has hailed a major deal with a Swedish state-owned renewables giant.
Aberdeen-headquartered PD&MS Group has secured a three-year operations and maintenance (O&M) contract with Vattenfall to support its European offshore wind portfolio for an undisclosed sum.
Sign up for free: You can now get the briefing sent direct to your email inbox twice-daily, and Business Week for the seven-day round-up on Sunday 👇
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here