What Retty does

Retty is a Tokyo-based social restaurant discovery platform founded in 2010, positioned as Japan's largest real-name gourmet service (日本最大級の実名型グルメサービス). The platform enables consumers across all 47 Japanese prefectures to find restaurants through a recommendation engine powered by real-name user reviews, expert TOP USER curators specializing by area or cuisine, and searchable taxonomies covering dining purpose (dates, business meals, gatherings), cuisine genre, and neighborhood. Users access the service through free iOS/Android mobile applications and the retty.me website, and can complete restaurant reservations directly within the platform.

The core products include the Retty Web Platform, native mobile apps, an integrated Retty Reservation System (Rettyご予約情報), and a companion gourmet news service at retty.news. The proprietary TOP USER system identifies and certifies expert food reviewers, creating a trusted content curation layer above the standard user-review base. The platform's product-led growth motion relies on consumer-side virality through reviewer follow-graph and TOP USER influencer reach, while restaurant-facing paid services (advertising and promotional profiles) constitute the disclosed revenue stream.

Retty has raised approximately $23.5M in cumulative venture funding across six rounds from 2011 to 2018, with investors including YJ Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, World Innovation Lab, ABC Dream Ventures, CyberAgent Capital, ITOCHU Technology Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Mizuho Capital, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and STRIVE. The company is led by Founder and CEO Kazuya Takeda, Co-founder and Director Natsuka Tetsuya, and CFO Yuzaburo Tsuchiya, operating as a private corporation with 51-100 employees. Geographic expansion is confined to Japan, and there are no disclosed subsidiaries, M&A, or international operations.

Name

Retty

Legal name

Retty, Inc.

Website

https://retty.me

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Retty operates Japan's largest real-name restaurant discovery and review platform, serving consumers across all 47 Japanese prefectures via web and mobile apps. It monetizes through restaurant-facing advertising and integrated reservations, leveraging a curated TOP USER expert reviewer community.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Restaurant Discovery Platform

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)

akta.pro primary industry

Restaurant Reservations & Dining Booking Platforms (BPAMAIAK)

Keywords

• Restaurant discovery platform
• Real-name restaurant reviews
• Restaurant reservation system
• Gourmet recommendation service
• Food review community

Headquarters

HQ city

Tokyo

HQ country

Japan

HQ region

Asia

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Operations

Revenue model

1. Restaurant Advertising and Promotions: The platform allows restaurants to create profiles and promote their establishments to Retty users. Revenue is generated through restaurant-facing paid services.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

Retty operates a real-name restaurant discovery and recommendation platform accessible via web (retty.me) and native iOS/Android mobile apps, allowing users in Japan to search restaurants across all 47 prefectures by area, cuisine genre, or dining purpose (dates, business meals, gatherings). The platform combines user-generated reviews, a curated TOP USER expert recommender system, and integrated table reservation functionality to help consumers find their "BEST" restaurant from approximately 800,000 options nationwide.

Product overview

Retty operates as a unified restaurant discovery and reservation platform combining real-name restaurant reviews, expert recommendations from TOP USER curators, and integrated booking functionality. The core platform is accessible via web and native iOS/Android mobile applications, supplemented by a gourmet news service. Users can search restaurants by area (47 prefectures nationwide), cuisine genre, or dining purpose, with recommendations powered by verified expert reviewers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Retty Web Platform Japan's largest real-name restaurant review and recommendation web platform allowing users to discover restaurants through area, genre, and purpose-based searches with reviews from verified TOP USER recommenders.
• Retty Mobile App (iOS/Android)

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Tabelog: Operated by Kakaku.com, Tabelog is Japan's dominant restaurant-discovery and reservation platform with millions of user-submitted anonymous reviews. Most directly comparable to Retty in product, audience, and Japanese geography, but with the opposite content strategy (anonymous vs. real-name).
• Hot Pepper Gourmet: Recruit-operated restaurant search, reservation, and coupon platform in Japan — one of Retty's primary direct competitors in restaurant discovery and booking, with a strong SME-restaurant supply side and tied to Recruit's broader lifestyle ecosystem.
• Gurunavi: Long-standing Japanese restaurant search and reservation service with a nationwide restaurant database. Closely comparable in Japan-only restaurant-discovery + booking scope, though with a heavier emphasis on reservation partnerships and paid placement.
• Hitosara: Japanese restaurant guide focused on chef-driven and higher-end establishments with editorial-led discovery. Targets an overlapping premium dining audience and provides a directly comparable curated-discovery alternative to Retty's TOP USER-led model.

Broad incumbents

• OpenTable: Global restaurant reservation marketplace owned by Booking Holdings. Closely comparable on the reservation-transaction side of Retty's product but with global restaurant supply and a deeper SaaS/reservation monetization layer that Retty's current model lacks.
• Yelp: U.S.-headquartered restaurant and local-business review platform with a massive user-generated review corpus. Comparable on the discovery-via-reviews product surface, though Yelp's broader local-business scope and U.S. concentration make it a broad incumbent rather than a direct Japanese competitor.
• Google Maps: Owns default restaurant discovery, listing data, reviews, and directions across Japan. Comparable as a discovery surface where users begin restaurant searches; a structural threat to all dedicated restaurant-review platforms due to default placement and rich local data integration.

Regional players

• EPark: Japanese restaurant and lifestyle reservation platform offering booking across restaurants, clinics, and leisure. Comparable on the reservation-led product surface; primarily relevant as a regional Japan-focused competitor with adjacent categories beyond Retty's restaurant-only focus.

Emerging players

• LINE PLACE: LINE (Yahoo Japan / SoftBank group) location and restaurant discovery service tied to the dominant LINE messaging platform in Japan. Comparable discovery functionality, with distribution advantages from LINE's installed base that retty.me lacks.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Retty_jp
• Facebookfacebook.com/retty.me

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds6 records

Investors10 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments1 record

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Retty