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Abratable and AbraResto pull down shutters due to lack of funding

Abraresto

Seeking to raise bridge round, deal with Indonesian family fund broke down after having closed a term sheet

Abratable Pte Ltd, which includes Indonesian restaurant discovery and review site AbraResto.com and Singapore-based online restaurant reservation site Abratable, has announced that it will cease operations, in an official statement.

Having raised seed funding of US$1.5 million — of which a third was in the form of equity and held in a debt facility until it was eventually cancelled — for AbraResto from a group of families associated with some of the largest privately-held companies in Indonesia in early 2014, the company was looking to raise a bridge round and attracted interest from another Indonesian family fund.

Despite closing a term sheet with the family fund, whose investors’ identities remain undisclosed, in early May of this year, the deal broke down in mid-August.

Subsequent efforts to close other avenues of funding were unsuccessful and Abratable Pte Ltd was forced to close down because of ‘its cash flow situation.’

“Shutting down one’s startup is one of the toughest things any entrepreneur ever has to go through. This is especially true for two reasons for me: the remarkable team [at Abratable Pte Ltd]; and having also bootstrapped the company initially, [the investments of] personal funds [and] personal time […] have been significant,” said Ankur Mehrotra, Founder and CEO of Abratable Pte Ltd.

Abratable Pte Ltd’s struggles come amidst stiff competition in the restaurant discovery and restaurant reservation industries in Indonesia and Singapore respectively.

In the former, the like of similar sites to AbraResto such as the India-based Zomato has penetrated the Indonesian market on the back of US$110 million of funding raised over two rounds in April and September this year.

Also Read: Zomato raises US$60M from Temasek, Vy Capital

The post Abratable and AbraResto pull down shutters due to lack of funding appeared first on e27.