Edinburgh hospitality tech disruptor pushes button on £500,000 funding drive

An Edinburgh-based hospitality tech disruptor is looking to raise an additional £500,000 to underpin its ambitious expansion plans.
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Bosses at ePOS Hybrid said the business had seen impressive demand from investors previously, achieving 145 per cent overfunding in its first funding round, smashing its original £250,000 target.

Founded in Edinburgh by computer science graduate and serial entrepreneur Bhas Kalangi, the firm offers a suite of point-of-sale, fintech - financial technology - and digital ordering products for hospitality businesses. Its technology promises to automate a bar, restaurant or takeaway’s operations and streamline everything from customer ordering to stock control and kitchen management.

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Andrew Gibbon, head of growth at ePOS Hybrid, which has an additional office in London, said: “The advances we have made since our last crowdfunding success are game changing and our second round is already highly-anticipated, with overwhelming demand already being seen from both existing and new investors.

“From our discussions with key investors over the past six months, no one wants to miss out, it seems that everyone is really excited to be part of our next round. However, this also represents a great opportunity for interested members of the public who missed out on our first round, to join us on our exciting journey as we begin scaling internationally.”

He added that the crowdfunding opportunity will go live on the Crowdcube platform and is likely to quickly become oversubscribed.

“In the past two years we have helped hospitality businesses to save more than £1.7 million in third party commissions, which they tell us is one of the most important benefits to them,” added Gibbon.

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“However, that is just one of the milestones we have achieved since our last funding round, despite the well documented challenges the hospitality sector has had to deal with during that time.

ePOS Hybrid founder and CEO Bhas Kalangi and Andrew Gibbon, head of growth. Picture: Ian GeorgesonePOS Hybrid founder and CEO Bhas Kalangi and Andrew Gibbon, head of growth. Picture: Ian Georgeson
ePOS Hybrid founder and CEO Bhas Kalangi and Andrew Gibbon, head of growth. Picture: Ian Georgeson

“In the past 24 months our platform has also processed more than £94m for UK businesses, a 2000 per cent increase since our last investment round.

“We’ve also generated a 400 per cent increase in our customer base, and are now in over 890 UK locations processing more than £6.7m in sales per month. Meanwhile, more than 7.5 million consumers have used our products to order a meal or buy a round of drinks.

“It is these kind of performance figures which make us such an appealing investment and which gives us confidence that we’ll see strong demand in this funding round.”

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The firm pointed to a number of “exciting new products in development”, which are scheduled to launch in the months ahead.

The secured investment will enable the capital company to roll out its tech to more businesses in the UK, support international expansion into new territories such as India and enable further innovation.

Gibbon added: “We have a number of key growth areas within the business which represent massive scaling opportunities for us. This new funding will allow us to take advantage of these and drive the business towards achieving our targeted ten-times growth over the next two years.”

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