Recipe-sharing goes international

Cookpad, a Japan-based online network has acquired Indian online recipe sharing start-up Cucumbertown. However, the latter will remain an independent entity despite the acquisition. This is one of the larger acquisitions that Cookpad has made though the details of the deal have not been disclosed to the public.

The future looks good for Cucumbertown as this acquisition will expand its reach to foreign waters and boost its financial growth. Currently, select bloggers are being chosen for the service and will be able to customize their food blogs with the help of themes and custom domains.

Cherian Thomas, Cucumbertown founder said, “India is one of the very few cultures where cooking is still mainstream and passionately followed. Indian cookbooks, recipes and ingredients have always remained an obsession and mystery for other cultures. Cucumbertown and Cookpad will work to put this on the global culinary map.”

Founded in October 2012, by Cherian Thomas, Arun Prabhakar, Chris Luscher and Dan Hauk, Cucumbertown is a recipe-publishing network for cooks/chefs. Cucumbertown transformed from a simple recipe-sharing network to a large food blogging platform. Today, it reaches out to 160+ countries and millions of users. It showcases various recipes on the website and filters them based on their complexity and time required to prepare.

Cookpad is Japan’s leading recipe site which enables its users to upload and search through user-created recipes. It has a large fan base and has a total of 50 million users along more than two million registered recipes. The company was founded in 1997 by Akimitsu Sano and Yoshiteru Akita is its current CEO.

Such international tie-ups between start-ups are good signs for the Indian start-up industry. Future tie-ups and acquisitions will further help the economy to monetize on the opportunity and expand its reach to the international market.