Restalo

About Restalo

Restalo, a Barcelona-based entity, operated in the online restaurant reservation market, providing a consumer-facing application for users and management software for restaurants. The company was founded by Juan Otero, Enrique Dominguez Miguel, and Clarissa Oleary. Following a period of ambitious international expansion into markets like Italy and Australia, the company faced financial challenges, including the shutdown of its Australian subsidiary in May 2014.

The firm secured significant venture capital, including a €1 million round led by Active Venture Partners in 2011 and a subsequent $10 million injection from Seaya Ventures and ActiveVP in September 2013. Strategic shifts occurred as investors sought to pivot the business model away from a coupon-based system to focus purely on reservation technology, aiming to emulate the OpenTable model rather than Groupon's. This transition led to a change in leadership, with the founding team departing and Pablo Pastega Milans del Bosch taking over as CEO in January 2015 to professionalize management.

In a significant market consolidation move, Restalo acquired its competitor, Restaurantes.com, in September 2015. The merged entity continued operations under the Restaurantes.com brand, combining a database of over 6,000 restaurants and 1.2 million users. This positioned the company as a major competitor to El Tenedor (LaFourchette), which had been acquired by TripAdvisor in 2014. The business model focused on providing technology and reservation services to the restaurant industry, which is noted for being sales-intensive with low margins.