[October 03, 2009] Livebookings Completes Round of Funding with Wellington Partners Tweet Oct 03, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- Livebookings announced the closure of a financing round of $16 million led by pan-European venture capital firm Wellington Partners and backed by existing investors. Wellington Partners' investment follows some $12 million from Balderton Capital and other investors during 2008 - 2009. Livebookings provides restaurateurs access to customers that would otherwise be difficult to reach through global network properties such as Bookatable.com, lastminute.com and Yell.com. The company also works with restaurants such as Gordon Ramsay Holdings, The Ivy and its other Caprice Holdings Restaurants, Tantris, East, Grill, Mathias Dahlgren Matbaren, Mavrommatis and Pedro Larumbe to enable them to secure table reservations online. "Livebookings has grown aggressively since day one and we're now at a point where we see a fantastic opportunity for further managed but rapid growth supported with further investment," said Niklas Eklund, CEO for Livebookings. "Despite the recession, recent figures show the number of new restaurants now using online reservations to fill their tables has risen by 91 percent this summer compared to last. However we estimate only 7 percent of restaurants currently use online reservations, showing us the enormous growth potential in our chosen market." EOC Partners (EOCP) acted as the investment banking advisor (Financial) in the transaction and Lewis Silkin, (Legal) for Livebookings. Thies Eggers (Financial) and Mark A. Dorff, Brown Rudnick (Legal) were advisors to Wellington Partners. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]