A Birmingham tech entrepreneur is hoping to take on the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats in his home city with his own food delivery service.
Waqar Shah is behind Supermeal, a food delivery website and app which has around 200 restaurants and takeaways signed up from across Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country.
The company is now trying to raise an additional £500,000 through crowdfunding website Crowdcube which will help it attract further restaurants from across the West Midlands.
Mr Shah, who describes the business as online discovery takeaway platform, said: "We have been approved by Crowdcube to be listed on their website.
"We are trying to raise £500,000 but we need to generate 20 per cent of this from our own investors.
"If we raise £500,000, it will cover a ten-month period during which time we will focus on Midlands towns connected to Birmingham."
Mr Shah, 36, studied computer science at the University of Birmingham and later became a software engineer, working for British Telecom where he developed the telecoms giant's mobile content.
He launched a software outsourcing business called WaqarTech in 2009 which is still running today and which has been used to fund the launch and development of Supermeal.
The website was created in 2015 after a pilot project had been running in Asia for three years under the name 'Foortal' and now employs eight staff from its base at tech hub Innovation Birmingham along with around 20 people in Asia to whom work is outsourced.
It runs loyalty cash back and refer a friend schemes for customers which offer them credit towards their next orders and has similar incentives to encourage restaurants to sign up.
Mr Shah said his next goal for the company was to grow Supermeal across the West Midlands and bring in new restaurants and takeaways based in neighbouring towns to Birmingham.
He added: "We offer customers up to 30 per cent instant cash back on every order via loyalty credit into their account.
"We have customers who have earned up to £90 in cash back in three or four months.
"It's a very sustainable business model.
"We tell restaurants not to give away money off vouchers, they are better off using the cash back model.
"It's a loyalty programme but the money is never lost as the customers keep coming back to spend again.
"Restaurants are starting to understand this now."
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