San Francisco Citizen

Foodspotting has been sold.

Seems like there’s not a whole lot of money to go around considering all the people involved, but you’d have to call this a pretty successful app.

Investors:

• BlueRun Ventures (Jay Jamison)
• Felicis Ventures (Aydin Senkut)
• 500 Startups (Dave McClure)
• High Line Venture Partners (Shana Fisher)
• Zelkova Ventures
• 2020 Ventures
• Dave Morin, Founder and CEO of Path
• Steve Lee, Group Product Manager for Location Based Services at Google
• Derek Dukes, Founder and CEO of Dipity
• Dan Martell, Cofounder of Flowtown

“OpenTable to Acquire Foodspotting

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 29, 2013  – OpenTable, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN), the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Foodspotting, an app for finding and sharing great dishes at restaurants, for approximately $10 million in cash pursuant to a stock purchase agreement. The completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

“We’re proud to welcome the talented Foodspotting team to the OpenTable family,” said Matt Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of OpenTable.  ”The Foodspotting team is as passionate about dining as we are, and we’re looking forward to leveraging their unique expertise in the areas of imagery and social sharing to enrich the OpenTable experience for diners and restaurants in new and exciting ways. By adding more visually compelling content to help people decide where to dine and discover dishes they’ll love, we hope to make it even easier to find the perfect table for any occasion.”

“We’re so happy to have found a home for Foodspotting where our community can continue to thrive while our entire team continues to focus on creating great dining experiences,” said Alexa Andrzejewski, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Foodspotting, who will be joining OpenTable as a lead user interface designer.  ”While working with OpenTable as partners we realized we could create more intelligent, seamless and beautiful experiences if we had the opportunity to integrate our products more deeply.  We look forward to contributing our mobile, social and design expertise in ways that will delight both diners and restaurants.”

By enabling OpenTable to deliver a richer visual and social experience for diners and provide its restaurant customers with new opportunities to showcase their offerings, the acquisition supports the Company’s focus on continuing to enhance the ways it helps diners discover and book the perfect restaurant table.  OpenTable recently added dish photos through a collaboration with Foodspotting, giving diners a small taste of the kind of enhancements that will be coming once the Foodspotting team is on board.  In addition to welcoming the Foodspotting team to OpenTable, the Company plans to maintain the Foodspotting site and mobile apps on a standalone basis.

About OpenTable, Inc.
OpenTable is the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations, seating approximately 10 million diners per month via online bookings across more than 26,000 restaurants. The OpenTable network connects restaurants and diners, helping diners discover and book the perfect table and helping restaurants deliver personalized hospitality to keep guests coming back. The OpenTable service enables diners to see which restaurants have available tables, select a restaurant based on verified diner reviews, menus and other helpful information, and easily book a reservation. In addition to the company’s website and mobile apps, OpenTable powers online reservations for nearly 600 partners, including many of the Internet’s most popular global and local brands. For restaurants, the OpenTable hospitality solutions enable them to manage their reservation book, streamline their operations and enhance their service levels. Since its inception in 1998, OpenTable has seated more than 385 million diners around the world.  The Company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and the OpenTable service is available throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and the UK. OpenTable also owns and operates toptable, the leading consumer destination site for restaurant reservations in the UK.
OpenTable, OpenTable.com, OpenTable logos, toptable and other service names are the trademarks of OpenTable, Inc. and/or its affiliates

“Foodspotting is a visual guide to good food and where to find it. Instead of reviewing restaurants, you can recommend great dishes and see what others recommend wherever you go.

Our goal is to cover the earth with amazing food sightings, from our childhood hometowns in Pennsylvania to food capitals like Tokyo. Since launching Foodspotting in January 2010, over 2.5 million foods have been spotted around the world, but we’re counting on you to represent your city by sharing your favorite local dishes.

How it Works

To find great dishes:

• Look up your location or move & scan the map to fine tune it.
• Find your favorite restaurant to see what foodspotters & friends love there.
• Search for a particular dish that you’re craving by name (noodles) or type (red velvet).
• Follow friends and experts like Chow or Travel Channel to see what they love.
• Bookmark foods you “Want” to try and recommend dishes you’ve “Tried” and “Loved.”

To share great dishes:

• Share a great dish by uploading a photo or simply saying you “Loved it!”
• Connect Instagram and tag your photos #foodspotting. Be sure to include location!
• Keep track of what you want, try and love and organize dishes using Guides.
• Become a dish expert by spotting 5 or more foods in the same category.
• Earn reputation points for making quality contributions to the community.

About the Company

In January 2010, Foodspotting launched the first and leading mobile app for finding and rating dishes. Today, you can use Foodspotting to see what foodspotters, friends and experts like Chow, Travel Channel and Wolfgang Puck love wherever you go.

Featured as App of the Week in both the iPhone and Android app stores, Foodspotting has received attention from The Today Show, The Cooking Channel and Inc Magazine and was named one of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Apps of 2012 and a Top Travel Application by Travel + Leisure. Foodspotting is backed by Blue Run Ventures, Felicis Ventures, High Line Ventures, 500 Startups and Zelkova Ventures as well as a syndicate of angel investors including Dave Morin.

Based in San Francisco, Foodspotting has built a worldwide community of foodspotters who love to find and share interesting dishes wherever they go.”