Food start-up Flipdish becomes Ireland's latest unicorn

Food-tech startup Flipdish promises to create 700 jobs this year following a funding round of $100m (€87.25m)which makes it the most recent Irish company to reach ‘unicorn’ status.

Founded by brothers Conor and James McCarthy in Dublin in 2015, Flipdish creates technology that lets hospitality businesses provide their own food ordering sites and apps, instead of going through third parties like Just Eat which would eat into restaurant commission.

The company operates in 25 countries including France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, the UK and the US. The most recent funding round follows an investment of $48.5m (€42.32m) from Tiger Global Management last February. It said the investment will be used to grow global operations, fund R&D in products and support new customers like cinemas, stadia and airports.

“Our investment will help us to empower more hospitality businesses around the world to grow with the best-in-class technology,” said Conor McCarthy.

Unicorn status is given to companies that reach €1bn in valuation in under a decade and Flipdish joins a small pool of Irish companies sharing the same title.

Other Irish unicorns are Workhuman, Intercom, Fenergo, LetsGetChecked, and Intercom. Stripe, the payment system that came from two brothers in Limerick, however is known as a decacorn as it reached over $10bn in less than 10 years.

Flipdish said the new jobs are for software architects, data scientists, engineers and product designers, while other jobs will be created for commercial roles.

“Digitisation has been transforming the hospitality sector for years. The ongoing pandemic has further accelerated the trend with hospitality businesses becoming increasingly dependent on digital experiences to attract and retain customers,” said McCarthy.

Tencent, who led the funding round joins existing Flipdish investors Tiger Global, Global Founders Capital, Elkstone, Enterprise Ireland and Growing Capital.

Reporting: The Irish Examiner