Korea’s Catchtable eyes offshore table reservation markets

Wad Corp., the developer and operator of South Korea’s most popular restaurant reservation app Catchtable, is considering offering Catchtable services to diners in other countries after seeing a jump in its app use by foreign visitors to Korea.  

“We are expanding Catchtable offers for not only local diners but also foreign visitors to Korea,” Yoo Ho-jin, co-founder and head of global business of Wad, said in an interview with The Korea Economic Daily on Tuesday. “We are considering venturing into overseas markets.”

As part of its globalization plan, Wad plans to develop an AI-powered translation program for Catchtable to ensure accurate and easy translation of various languages, Yoo said.

“We are developing technology that will enable 20 million foreign tourists to use our platform,” said Yoo.

Introduced in 2018, Catchtable offers not only table reservation and mobile waitlist services for diners but also business-to-business services, such as table reservation status and guest reservation history, for restaurant owners. 

It is Korea’s top table reservation app and the only restaurant reservation platform available in multiple languages for foreign tourists in the country.

EXPANSION OF CATCHTABLE'S GLOBAL VERSION

Since the company launched an English version of Catchtable in late 2022, it has added Japanese and Chinese to the platform upon strong requests from foreign visitors to Korea, said Yoo.

The monthly active users of Catchtable’s global version have surged 590% from last year, and the app’s foreign membership also skyrocketed more than 20 times. 

Foreign visitors to Korea reached 11.03 million last year, with 2.32 million Japanese tourists and 2.02 million Chinese tourists. Visitors from the US also stood at 1.09 million, according to government data.

Encouraged by the recent data, the Korean government has announced a plan to attract about 20 million foreign tourists this year.

To support the government plan, Wad is actively exploring various partnership programs with state tourism agencies and other private organizations to further bolster the country’s tourism industry through enhanced culinary experiences.  

Under an agreement, the startup will offer data collected from Catchtable services to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), while the KTO improves tourists’ accessibility to the app.  

Yoo said the company has also received various partnership offers from overseas, including Hong Kong-headquartered travel and leisure platform Klook, other mobility and accommodation reservations apps, as well as hotel chains.

As a mobile, waitlist system, is still new to many places around the world, “the company plans to offer the service in overseas markets after it seizes the Korean tourism market,” said Yoo.  

Impressed by the app’s rapid ascent in Korea, investors are keen to open their wallets to the app developer.

In July 2023, Wad raised 30 billion won ($22 million) in a Series D funding round led by Company K Partners, Altos Ventures, Korea Development Bank, Woori Venture Partners and Hyundai Investment Partners.

The new funding was completed only 15 months after its Series C funding. With the latest funding, the Korean startup has raised a total of 70 billion won.

Yoo joined Wad as the company’s chief technology officer in 2018 to lead the development of the Catchtable app.

He is currently in charge of developing Catchtable’s global version.

Write to Kang-Ho Jang at callme@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.