BiteHunter, the recently released “Kayak for Restaurants” app, is today launching a major upgrade to its iPhone app which includes integration with hundreds more dining deals sources including Yelp Deals, Groupon Now and LivingSocial Instant. The time-limited deals are featured within the app’s new “BiteNow” section, showing you discounted dining options while on the go. The best deals only appear for a few hours, then disappear.
Groupon Now and LivingSocial Instant are the competing “instant deals” offshoots from the already popular daily deals services Groupon and Living Social. Unlike the typical daily deal, which can be used at any time, instant deals are time-sensitive and are often used by merchants to boost business during slow periods.
Although still in the processing of rolling out, Groupon Now deals are already live in 25 markets across the U.S and LivingSocial Instant has deals live in 18 regions.
In total, with today’s release, BiteHunter has added 200 new national dining deals sources, and is continuing to add more on a regular basis.
BiteHunter’s overall design has been improved with this app update, too, with changes made based on user feedback. It’s now easier and quicker to use. The company added features like an automated calculator to show you the deals’ actual savings and the ability to customize your profile to show favorite cuisines only, save deals or share them with your friends via Twitter, Facebook or email.
Soon, the company will be rolling out a notifications system that will learn from your social graph and in-app behavior to push you updates showing you only those deals you would really be interested in.
Further down the road, BiteHunter will begin to function as not only a deals locator, but a tool you can use to purchase deals. Today, explains BiteHunter CEO and Co-Founder Gil Harel, it’s not always the best user experience to send you to another source to get the deal. The other website might not mobile-friendly, for example, and you have to sign in again to make a purchase. BiteHunter plans to serve as the middleman between you and the deal you want, so that you can purchase the deal in the mobile app with credit card information you have on file. The plan is for BiteHunter to house 70-80% of the deals in the U.S.
Through its API, BiteHunter’s aggregated deals are showing up in more places on the Web, too, including LocalPages.com and the company has more partnerships in the works.
Since its launch in June, BiteHunter has been download by nearly 100,000 users. So far, it has raised $500,000 from angels, family and friends.
The new app is available on iTunes here.
Update: A Groupon spokesperson mistakenly informed us Groupon Now was live in 40 markets. It is only live in 25.