MarketplaceNov 9
Private Chef Booking Marketplace Leading in the Netherlands, Belgium and France
More than 2,000 private chefs take bookings for dinners, weddings and cooking workshops through this bootstrapped Dutch platform, which leads its category in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
- Ask
- $600K
- Profit
- $250K
- Multiple
- 2.4x
- Ask
- $600K
- Revenue
- $450K
- Profit
- $250K
- Margin
- 56%
- Multiple
- 2.4x
- Age
- 4 yrs (2022)
How it rates
ValuationFair
Similar online software businesses we've tracked mostly ask 2.5–5.4x profit, or 2.2–4.8x adjusted for the owner's workload; this one asks 2.4x.
Durability
4 years old, growing 40% and live in 13 countries, but it depends on its founders and on one-off events.
Hands-off
Both cofounders work full time, one on tech and one on sales, and one person handles daily operations.
Why it's interesting
- About €2.2M a year is booked through the platform. It earns a 15% commission plus a 3–8% client service fee, 8% booking protection and gift card sales.
- Revenue grew 40% this year. Its 2,000+ active chefs all joined without paid recruiting, and it reached #1 in France within 8 months of launching there in 2024.
- Three property-management systems are already connected, so it can offer chefs to holiday-rental guests, and 10% of leads come from North America without any effort to win them.
- Built on a standard stack (Django, Next.js, React Native app, Stripe, AWS run through Terraform), and the code, brand and mobile app are included.
What to watch
- Two full-time cofounders run tech and sales, and the listing doesn't say whether the profit is after paying them. Replacing them could cut profit sharply.
- Bookings are likely mostly one-off events, and the sellers say high commissions push chefs to take clients off the platform.
- Several listing fields look wrong or out of date: fewer than 10 customers, $0 recurring revenue, 1–3% churn and a traffic chart from May 2023. No current breakdown of traffic or bookings by channel is given.
- It competes with TakeAChef and yhangry. The asking price of 2.4 times profit is low for a software marketplace, which may reflect how much founder time it needs.
Ask the seller
- Do the two cofounders draw salaries in the P&L, and what would profit be after paying people to do their jobs?
- How do revenue and bookings split by country and by channel (organic search, paid ads, PMS partners)?
- What share of clients and chefs book again through the platform, and how much repeat business do you think leaks off it?
Growth plays
- Connect more property-management systems and sign holiday-park and villa-rental operators so private chefs are sold as a guest add-on.
- Recruit chefs in key US cities and target North Americans who already book chefs through it in France and Italy, to convert the leads coming in unprompted.
- Market to the average of 8 guests at each event with a follow-up gift card or referral offer.
Nov 9Added to Acumen Wire