WAD, the South Korean company behind restaurant reservation platform Catchtable, has secured KRW 30 billion in the first tranche of its Series E funding round, pushing its cumulative funding past KRW 100 billion.
The KRW 30 billion was raised through a consortium of three new investors: Aeneas Private Equity, Hyundai Investment Partners, and NH Investment & Securities. The investment was structured as a purchase of newly issued redeemable convertible preferred shares (RCPS), with some consortium members also planning to acquire existing shares in a follow-on tranche.
This is the first tranche of a larger Series E round targeting KRW 700 billion in total. The consortium plans to invest an additional KRW 20 billion in a second tranche, while WAD is separately raising the remaining KRW 20 billion directly from domestic and international blind funds. Once fully completed, the Series E round would reach KRW 700 billion, with the company’s post-investment valuation expected to reach approximately KRW 570 billion.
Founded in 2016 by CEO Yong Tae-soon, WAD is a Korean food-service platform company that operates Catchtable, a real-time restaurant reservation and waitlist management service. Catchtable began as a service connecting consumers with restaurants for reservations and has since expanded into customer management tools for restaurant operators.
The platform now serves as an integrated food-service platform, combining real-time reservations, waitlist management, and restaurant operations solutions. WAD has also been expanding internationally, with Japan identified as a key overseas market.
WAD plans to use the new capital to accelerate its expansion in Japan and to advance AI-based services and restaurant-management solutions. The company is positioning itself to become a “super platform” for the food-service industry, building on its reservation and waitlist foundation to offer a broader suite of digital tools for restaurant operators.
The investment reflects growing investor interest in the digital transformation of the food-service industry, as restaurant reservation platforms expand from simple booking services into broader business-management platforms for restaurant operators.
