Retty Inc., the Japanese restaurant-review app backed by an arm of Fidelity Worldwide Investment, plans a domestic initial public offering by mid-2017 to fund expansion into global cities, from San Francisco to Hong Kong.

Retty aims to start offering an English-language smartphone app and add a restaurant guide for either Hong Kong or Singapore by the end of this year, Chief Executive Officer Kazuya Takeda said in a July 28 interview. The Tokyo-based company will expand its coverage over the next five years to include major cities in the U.S., Europe and other Asian nations, he said.

The company, which started in June 2011 with staff riding bicycles to research downtown restaurants, plans to double its workforce to 100 in the next twelve months. Employees specialize in a particular food and visit eateries to ensure the accuracy of the app's information, according to Takeda, whose business card features a photo of raw beef to show his own focus on yakiniku, a popular cook-at-your-table style of grilled meat.