Japanese restaurant finder app Retty raises $8.2 million for global expansion

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This is the abridged version from our original article in Japanese

Tokyo-based Retty, a Japanese startup behind the restaurant finder app under the same name, announced today that it has fundraised 1 billion yen (or about $8.24 million) from Fidelity Growth Partners Japan and the startup’s existing investors. This follows their previous funding in a series B round securing 330 million yen ($3.2 million) back in 2013.

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Retty’s monthly active users hit the 7 million milestone in February, increasing a million from January. According to the company’s CEO Kazuya Takeda, this was made possible without any paid promotion but they want to let the growth increase up to 15 to 20 million users on a monthly basis by leveraging the funds.

Retty plans to use the funds to strengthen their global expansion to North American and Asian countries, especially in cities where local people have a habit of dining out every day. Along with this announcement, Retty also rolled out a new design to the iPhone app, simplifying an interface so that article viewers can better see an author’s face of every article and find restaurants which they may like.

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Renewed interface of Retty’s iOS app

Translated by Masaru Ikeda
Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy