BonAppetour, a community marketplace that connects travellers with home chefs around the world for a true ‘local dining experience’, has raised US $500,000 seed round.
The round was led by Wong Toon King (managing director of FarSight Capital), and Prasetia Dwidharma, the investment arm of Indonesian angel investor, Budi Setiadharma (spearheaded by Arya Setiadharma and Ardi Setiadharma).
With this funding, CEO and co-founder Rinita Vanjre highlighted plans to expand their presence in culinary capitals and continue to build their community in existing markets. Currently, over 500 hosts exist on the BonAppetour platform, which started off in European cities such as Rome, Paris and Barcelona.
“Other than the culinary hubs in Europe, our travel community has also been seeking dining experiences in Tokyo, Bangkok and Melbourne,” said Rinita.
BonAppetour’s hosts treat travellers to an authentic home-cooked meal in cities worldwide
Serial entrepreneur, Wong Toon King expressed admiration for BonAppetour’s “grit and daringness to pursue [big ideas],” remarking that this drive would help the BonAppetour brand develop “global food and hospitality tourism by making local home dining a highlight of each visitors travel experience.”
This ambition was also clearly recognised by Arya Setiadharma of Prasetia Dwidharma, who expressed an initial concern about BonAppetour’s rapid international expansion. However he felt confident in the investment, after having “listened to what they said about what has been done and what plans are in the pipeline.”
The founders have stated that they will also continue their focus on high quality, but authentic hospitality by meeting (either personally or through their ambassador network) and verifying each host and the experiences they offer, before including them on their platform.
They also provide “growth opportunities for hosts”, by giving them access to resources such as training programs and photography services, to help improve their profiles, and to help them recognise where their expertise and unique selling points are.
In doing so, they hope to nurture an “empowered and curated community” of passionate hosts wanting to give guests a one-of-a-kind dining experience.
