4 August 2015. $5million raised for rapid national expansion

Beat the Q Posse Group has today announced the closure of an oversubscribed Series A $5M funding round led by key investment partners, the Westpac backed venture fund Reinventure and leading venture capital firm Exto Partners.  

The investment comes just months after the merger of three of Australia’s most innovative and successful café start-ups – Posse, Beat the Q, and E-Coffee Card. The Group’s mission is to build the ultimate dining application for Australians and to significantly improve the payment process for customers when dining out or grabbing a coffee on the go.  

The company will also rebrand its flagship application Beat the Q to Hey You, effective 10 August 2015.  Hey You users will gain access to an upgraded app, which combines the best of the company’s three products and will enable users to order, pay, gain loyalty benefits, discover new places and connect with storeowners.

Beat the Q Posse co-founder Rebekah Campbell said the new funding would be used to rapidly accelerate growth by investing in innovative product development, marketing, and scaling merchant acquisition.  

“We’re looking forward to launching new features such as group ordering and beacon enabled table service.  There are so many ways technology can improve the way we discover, transact and interact with shops and we’re excited to be working with great partners such as Reinventure and Exto Partners to bring our vision to the world,” said Ms Campbell.

Co-founder Adam Theobald agrees: “We’ve accomplished a great deal since the merger late last year.  We’ve tripled our customer base in six months, we’re now processing more than 40,000 food and drink orders every week, and have transacted $10M on behalf of our cafes.”  

The company has recently made a series of high profile hires.  GroupOn Sales Director, Paul Clifford has jumped in to lead merchant acquisition and former Big Commerce senior developer Chaitanya Kuber is heading up the engineering team.  

Reinventure Cofounder and Managing Director Simon Cant says,  “We've been following this Group for some time and have been very impressed by Beat the Q's high user engagement and Posse's track record of growth. Based on the product vision and scaling plan, we believe that the integrated product will become an indispensable tool for Australian cafes and other merchants. We very much look forward to supporting them to achieve that goal.”

Exto Partners Managing Director Peter Hammond expects ordering via the Hey You app will become second nature to Australian smartphone users.  

“Hey You makes scrambling for cash or cards a thing of the past.  Exto Partners is excited to be joining with Beat the Q Posse Group and Reinventure in bringing personable, mobile search and convenience to dining,“ Mr Hammond said.

Reinventure and Exto Partners are the first institutional firms to back the Group. Early stage funding of the group has so far been from a line-up of Angel investors that includes Silicon Valley super angel Bill Tai, Yahoo Global CFO Ken Goldman and Google Maps Founder Lars Rasmussen as well as locals Macquarie Bank Head of Principal Investments Alex Harvey, Reckon Founder Greg Wilkinson and Vocus Communications Founder James Spenceley.


About Exto Partners:
Exto Partners is a leading Australian venture capital firm investing in startups and emerging technology companies.  For more than 12 years Exto has been an active investor building high performance global businesses that focus on innovation, transform established industries and challenge existing market leaders to drive value for our exclusive high net worth investors.

About Reinventure:
Reinventure is a AUD$50 million venture capital fund whose largest investor is the Westpac Banking Corporation, one of Australia's largest banking and financial services companies. Reinventure's approach is to bring great entrepreneurs together in a partnership with Westpac. As a result Reinventure aims to help ventures to scale more rapidly than they could do on their own. Reinventure makes investments from seed through to Series A and up. Co-founded and managed independently by Danny Gilligan and Simon Cant who are also co-investors in the fund, Reinventure’s model ensures that its primary objective is to invest in and develop the most successful ventures in their respective markets. For more information, visit www.reinventure.com.au