Peckish, a Cork-based start up has launched a €150,000 crowdfunding campaign to expand its new online food search engine.

The company was created to make ordering food easy, especially for those with dietary requirements such as coeliac, vegan and dairy-free.

Founded by Paul O'Shea, the company has launched a fundraising campaign through equity crowdfunding platform Spark Crowdfunding.

Consumers can go to the Peckish website, enter their location and search by cuisine such as a gluten-free burger or a vegan curry - or by dietary type such as dairy-free.

The Peckish search algorithm enables consumers to find and order dishes relevant to their dietary requirements by creating a searchable layer across multiple ordering platforms such as Deliveroo and Flipdish.

Similarly, the company's search algorithm helps restaurants increase online orders by matching the right dish to the right

"Consumers cannot simply search for their favourite foods online and be told exactly where to order or purchase them. This is especially difficult if you are one of the millions of consumers looking for vegan or gluten-free foods," said Paul O'Shea, Founder of Peckish.

Peckish is targeting €150,000 of investment on the Spark Crowdfunding platform, in exchange for equity in the Peckish company through a SAFE note.

Equity crowdfunding is a type of fundraising where small to medium-sized investors can invest anything from €100 upwards in a company in return for shares in that company.

"Peckish has developed the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking to eat or order online with its food search engine," said Chris Burge, CEO of Spark Crowdfunding.

"Peckish is already earning revenues and has generated more than 350,000 search results since founding," he added.

Peckish said the investment will be used to add features to the Peckish technology platform to assist integrations, menu onboarding and an AI recommendation system, and add key personnel to exploit market opportunities.

The global online food ordering market is estimated by McKinsey to be worth $150 billion, and it's expected to grow to $450 billion in 2025.