Allset Raises $2.35 Million, Plans To Expand Into Los Angeles and Chicago

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Allset recently announced a $2.35 million Seed funding round led by NYC based VC firm Metamorphic Ventures with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, FJ Labs, and SMRK VC Fund. Allset helps diners to book a table, order all food, and pre-pay ahead for meals which are served shortly after arrival. That basically means no more waiting to be seated, for your food, or your check! Today, Allset is available in 180+ of the best local restaurants in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York City. Below is our interview with Dimitri Nikulin, Chief Content Officer at Allset:

Q: What are the main benefits of using Allset?

A: Allset literally takes all the waiting out of eating lunch at restaurants. The app can save busy professionals up to 30 minutes of time that is usually spent waiting for a table, food, and check, and enable them to get on with their day.

Today, busy professionals order takeout and delivery not because they prefer it, but because it’s the only option that fits their tight lunch schedule. These options don’t necessarily match their needs or lifestyle, and never allow them to enjoy a real lunch break outside of the office.

People deserve better, they want to enjoy a real restaurant lunch break with friends or colleagues, but there has been no solution for them to make it happen easily or quickly. This is where Allset comes into play. We help busy professionals enjoy a nice sit-down lunch at local restaurants in under 30 minutes.

Q: How did the idea behind Allset come about?

A: Our team has 5 years of expertise in building mobile services for restaurants. Previously, we’ve built the biggest mobile loyalty program in Eastern Europe called Advice Wallet, and the first mobile payment app in Eastern Europe called Settle. They both formed the basis for Allset.

Stas Matviyenko, CEO, and Anna Polishchuk, COO, are experienced entrepreneurs who have been working together for 5 years. Pavlo Tiron, CTO, has 7 years experience in building high-quality products and leading dev teams. I joined the team 3 years ago and now lead the content and PR sides of Allset. Each one of us plays a key role and possesses the knowledge, experience, and skills that helps push the company forward. What we also have in common is that we are busy diners here at Allset.

As a team, we always leave the office for lunch because taking a break is good for your productivity, but we hate wasting time. Imagine that it’s a busy lunch hour, your schedule is tight, and you have to wait to be seated, your order to be taken, food cooked, the bill settled, etc. Our research shows that people usually spend up to 30 minutes at restaurants waiting, and only 15 minutes eating their lunch. It was a problem for us and we decided to solve it.

We took on the challenge and built the beta version of the new app within two weeks. The first user feedback was great, and we decided to launch Allset in San Francisco. Today, Allset is available in 180+ of the best local restaurants in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and New York City. We are on a mission to reclaim the restaurant lunch break: bring people from local offices back into local restaurants for lunch.

Q: Could you please give us more insights into Allset’s functionality?

A: Our tech team, led by our CTO Pavlo Tiron, did a great job to create the Allset app from scratch. Allset is the only app that takes care of the whole dining experience making it more seamless and wait-free. It allows people to book, order, and pay for their meals at local restaurants before arrival. Since grabbing a table, food, and check are settled in advance — people can now take a real lunch break, enjoy the full restaurant experience, and always be on time.

On top of that, Allset allows you to invite your friends for lunch too. You can make lunch reservations for parties and invite friends from the contacts on your phone. Invited friends receive a text message and can join you with the push of a button. Friends order and pay for their meals separately through the app so you’ll never need to split the check and do the math.

Earlier this year we released a Facebook Messenger bot to enable diners to book, order & pay ahead for lunch at local restaurants without downloading the Allset app, directly from Facebook Messenger on their phones and computers.

Q: You’ve recently announced a $2.35 million Seed funding; what are your plans?

A: Many on-demand startups in food industry have suffered hard times this year. Venture funding becomes harder to get. This new round is a huge vote of confidence in our team. It’s a great honor to have support from amazing people behind Andreessen Horowitz, Metamorphic Ventures, FJ Labs, and our previous investors involved in our next stage of growth. We are planning to utilize the new funds to expand into new markets (Los Angeles and Chicago) as well as for product research, development, and marketing.

Q: How would you convince the reader to start using Allset?

A: We are really passionate about Allset and have a goal to make lives of our customers easier and more productive. We are really thankful to amazing people who’ve been supporting us. We’ve got a lot of positive response about the Allset experience from them. Our customers say it best:

“Amazing food. Amazing service. This experience has made me keep Allset on my phone and refer my boss.”

“The walk to and from the restaurant took a total of 15-20 minutes so having everything prepared beforehand was great.”

“The process was very simple, and I was amazed that I didn’t have to wait.”

Last Updated on November 25, 2016