Trip Advisor buys Otium's LaFourchette

The company was sold for around €100m in an all-cash deal, according to TechCrunch.

The company's current shareholders are Otium, with a majority shareholding, as well as Partech International, Serena Capital and the company's two co-founders, CEO Bertrand Jelensperger and Patrick Dalsace.

Following the deal, the company will continue to operate from its existing European offices.

LaFourchette first received funding in December 2008, securing €1m from Otium, which took a majority stake in the business in return. At the time of Otium's first investment, LaFourchette employed six staff and generated a few hundred reservations per month.

The firm then followed up with a €3.3m second round of funding in April 2011.

In May 2012, LaFourchette saw new backers Serena and Partech take part in an €8m funding round. The deal gave LaFourchette an enterprise value of around €50m, according to reports at the time.

Company
Founded in 2007, LaFourchette is headquartered in Paris with additional bases in Madrid, Geneva and Barcelona, as well as a Brussels office set to open this year. The company employs 190 staff.

LaFourchette offers an online restaurant booking platform and has developed an electronic reservation software-as-a-service designed to allow restaurants to manage reservations and yield occupancy, as well as the ability to offer last-minute reservations.

The company operates the "eltenedor" brand in Spanish and "thefork" in English. It has a network of more than 12,000 partners across Europe and counted more than 700,000 reservations made through its platform in the first few months of this year, according to Otium.

People
Bertrand Jelensperger is the CEO of LaFourchette, while Stephen Kaufer is the president and CEO of TripAdvisor. Otium managing director Antoine Freysz managed the firm's investment in LaFourchette.

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