French startup tester has raised $37 million in Series B funding from Octopus Ventures, Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, HeartCore, Rakuten, GFC and Founder Futures. The company operates dozens of restaurants that only exist on food delivery platforms. You can’t book a table because there are no tables. Tester has so far focused on five street food-inspired concepts – Bian Dang (Taiwanese food), A burgers (plant-based burgers), Mission Saigon (Vietnamese food), Out Fry (Korean food) and Stacksando (Japanese street food).
Since then, Tester has opened dozens of kitchens across 40 different cities and listed its kitchens on food delivery platforms such as Delivery and Uber Eats. Basically, the startup wants to create new restaurant chains for the twenty-first century. Instead of opening brick-and-mortar restaurants, Tester focuses on catering because it’s still a bright category. In Paris, Tester Restaurants is the third restaurant group to deliver behind McDonald’s and Burger King – it represents more than 5,000 meals a day.
Since then, Tester has opened dozens of kitchens across 40 different cities and listed its kitchens on food delivery platforms such as Delivery and Uber Eats. Basically, the startup wants to create new restaurant chains for the twenty-first century. Instead of opening brick-and-mortar restaurants, Tester focuses on catering because it’s still a bright category. In Paris, Tester Restaurants is the third restaurant group to deliver behind McDonald’s and Burger King – it represents more than 5,000 meals a day.
After operating its own kitchen, Tester now wants to partner with existing restaurants that don’t get a lot of orders at Delivery or Uber Eats. The tester brings its own indigenous brands and menus as well as its technology tools. Tester has created its own distribution app for Android and iOS. However you can find Tester’s restaurants on third party platforms.
The startup does not want to rearrange the wheels and replace the food ordering platforms. But it also makes sense to offer its service to end direct service customers. As tester brands become more recognizable, demand should build from day one – restaurants can expect to earn between €4,000 and €6,000 in the first week. By 2025, Tester wants to operate in 1000 cities for this partnership model.
