Hospitality tech startup ePOS Hybrid is hoping to raise £500,000 through crowdfunding in its second seed funding round to help with future expansion plans.

The Edinburgh and London-based tech specialist has seen increased demand from investors previously, achieving 145% overfunding in its first funding round, and beating its original £250k target.

Investment will enable ePOS Hybrid to roll out its tech to more businesses in the UK, support international expansion into new territories such as India and enable further innovation.

Commenting on the funding, Andrew Gibbon, Head of Growth at ePOS Hybrid, said: “The advances we have made since our last crowdfunding success are game changing and our second round is already highly anticipated, with overwhelming demand already being seen from both existing and new investors.

“From our discussions with key investors over the past six months, no one wants to miss out, it seems that everyone is excited to be part of our next round.

“However, this also represents a great opportunity for interested members of the public who missed out on our first round, to join us on our exciting journey as we begin scaling internationally.”

He added that the crowdfunding opportunity will go live on the renowned Crowdcube platform in early May and is likely to quickly become oversubscribed.

Founded in Edinburgh by computer science graduate and serial entrepreneur Bhas Kalangi, ePOS Hybrid offers point-of-sale, fintech and digital ordering technology for hospitality businesses such as fast-food restaurants.

The firm’s tech can automate a bar, restaurant or takeaway’s operations and streamline elements including customer ordering to stock control and kitchen management.

Its various elements, including point of sale (POS), enables firms to create new sales channels, increase efficiency and reduce the commissions paid to third parties.

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Gibbon continued: “In the past two years we have helped hospitality businesses to save more than £1.7 million in third party commissions, which they tell us is one of the most important benefits to them.

“However, that is just one of the milestones we have achieved since our last funding round, despite the well documented challenges the hospitality sector has had to deal with during that time.

“In the past 24 months our platform has also processed more than £94m for UK businesses, a 2000% increase since our last investment round.”

He added: “We’ve also generated a 400% increase in our customer base and are now in over 890 UK locations processing more than £6.7 million in sales per month.

“Meanwhile, more than 7.5 million consumers have used our products to order a meal or buy a round of drinks.

“It is these kind of performance figures which make us such an appealing investment, and which gives us confidence that we’ll see strong demand in this funding round.”

The company said it has new products in development and scheduled to launch in the months ahead.

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