Ankit Mehrotra of Dineout shares his acquisition strategies for growth and scale

The Soonicorn Spotlight is a brand-new video series by YourStory in collaboration with PayU, one of India's leading payments solution providers. It was created to provide startup leaders with first-hand growth insights from some of the finest minds at the helm of the fastest-growing startups in the ecosystem.

For founders looking to scale, diversify or grow, acquisitions, mergers and partnerships, can be a powerful tool in their arsenal. While companies spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions every year, studies put the failure rate of mergers and acquisitions somewhere between 70 and 90 percent.

Ankit, who has been successful in positioning it as the ‘largest dining out and restaurant tech platform in India’ by strategic mergers and acquisitions over the last decade is an exception to the rule, and has some great insights to offer for acquisition and partnership playbooks.

“The most important factor that we look for in an acquisition – apart from what the company brings to the table – is the founding team and their vision,” says Ankit.

“I'm very proud to say that of all the companies that we've acquired till date, all the founders are still with Dineout, and contribute actively to its growth story,” he adds.

Talking about his playbook for extracting the best deals from partners at scale, Ankit says, “The cardinal rule that we follow for extracting any sort of deal from the partners is that the deal should benefit both sides of the story. It cannot be a cannibalistic partnership that favours one party strongly.”

“We make sure that the discount onus is not just on the restaurant partner, but split between the restaurant, Dineout and the banking partner. This makes for a successful long term working relationship, with true value” he adds.

Catch his insights and more on the seventh episode of The Soonicorn Spotlight, brought to you by PayU.

For more relevant content on powering your growth or scaling journeys, visit the specially curated Scale-up India page, here.