Food technology startups are a major trend in Asia this year, and even Echelon 2012 is reflecting this, with two of the finalists for this year’s pitching competition being food-related.
One of them is Snapdish, a food picture-sharing app that focuses on home cooking. The mobile app is developed by Vuzz, which was co-founded in 2010 by CEO and designer Zen Funada with four others.
SnapDish lets you upload photos of your food, alter the pictures to enhance their appeal, and share and even multipost to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, Tumblr, WordPress, and specified email addresses.
You can also post comments, rate dishes, keep a diary of records on the food you had at a specific time and place, as well as share recipes.
While there are several similar apps in the marketplace (like Foodspotting and Burpple), Snapdish separates itself with a focus on home-cooked food. Vuzz saw an opportunity to fill a void with a platform that motivates people to show off their beautiful home-cooked dishes and get noticed.
The team is working on expanding their user base in Japan and also abroad, across Asia. For starters, they formed a partnership agreement with Chinese networking service Renren.com last month and are looking for additional partnership opportunities in Korea.
Since their launch last year, they have garnered about 200,000 registered users, out of which around 120,000 are active monthly users, with 70 percent of them from Japan. The technology firm is aiming for a milestone of 1,000,000 users “as soon as possible”. Out of the active users, around 3000-3500 posts and 20,000-25,000 “Yummies” (likes) are recorded daily.
Zen sees a major revenue source coming from sponsored social marketing campaigns with large food companies. They have been getting enquiries constantly from the food industry since the launch of their app. They will also seek to gather metadata from the posts on SnapDish and incorporate them into their marketing offerings.
Having raised US$625k in series A funding last December, the startup is looking to raise their next round this summer. Their vision is to become the go-to social infrastructure for food in the long run.
The app is a free download on iTunes and Android.
SnapDish is a top ten finalist at Echelon 2012. Organized by tech blog e27 for the third year running, the event is a key startup launchpad in Asia with over 1,100 delegates in attendance and 50 startups exhibiting in the Marketplace. Check out SGE’s coverage of Echelon 2012.
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