Zomato: Revolutionizing Food Delivery in India

Introduction: Zomato, a prominent food delivery startup, achieved unicorn status in 2018. Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008, Zomato has transformed how India orders food.

Growth and Success: Starting as a restaurant discovery platform, Zomato expanded into food delivery, table reservations, and subscription services. Its acquisition of Uber Eats India in 2020 bolstered its market share.

Innovations and Future Plans: Zomato continues to innovate with its focus on sustainability, including initiatives like “Zomato Feeding India.” The company aims to expand globally and enhance its logistics network.

Zomato (/zoʊmɑːtoʊ/) is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company. It was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in more than 1,000 Indian cities and towns, as of 2022–23. Zomato rivals Swiggy in food delivery and hyperlocal space.

History

Zomato was founded as FoodieBay in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah who worked for Bain & Company. The website started as a restaurant-listing-and-recommendation portal. They renamed the company Zomato in 2010 as they were unsure if they would “just stick to food” and also to avoid a potential naming conflict with eBay.

With the introduction of .xxx domains in 2011, Zomato also launched zomato.xxx, a site dedicated to food porn. Later in 2011, Zomato officially launched an online ticketing platform for events.

In 2011, it expanded across India to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. In 2012, it expanded operations internationally in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Qatar, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and South Africa. In 2013, it expanded to New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia, with websites and apps available in Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and English languages. In April 2014, it was launched in Chile and Portugal, which was followed by launches in Canada, Lebanon, and Ireland in 2015.

In January 2015, Zomato acquired Seattle-based restaurant discovery portal Urbanspoon, which led to the firm’s entry into the United States and Australia. This U.S. expansion brought Zomato into direct competition with similar models such as Yelp and Foursquare.

In an effort to expand its business beyond restaurant listing, Zomato started its food delivery service in India in 2015, initially partnering with companies such as Delhivery and Grab to fulfill deliveries from restaurants that did not have their own delivery service.

In April 2015, Zomato acquired the American online table reservation platform NexTable, which was subsequently renamed Zomato Book. In January 2016, it launched Zomato Book’s table reservation feature on its application in India. In April 2015, it acquired cloud-based point of sale (PoS) company MapleGraph Solutions, and, in April 2016, launched its own version of PoS for restaurant owners called Zomato Base, comprising menu and inventory management, payment system, and analytics. Later that year, Zomato acquired Sparse Labs (renamed Zomato Trace) and integrated the latter’s real-time delivery location tracking technology on its food delivery platform.

In February 2017, the firm announced plans to launch Zomato Infrastructure Services, a cloud kitchen infrastructure service to help partner restaurants expand their presence without incurring any fixed costs. Later that year, it introduced a paid membership program called Zomato Gold using which subscribers could get offers and discounts on dining and food delivery at Zomato’s partner restaurants.

In 2018, Zomato shut down operations of Zomato Infrastructure Services. The company then acquired WOTU and rebranded it as Hyperpure to supply food ingredients such as grains, vegetables and meat to restaurants from its warehouses. In December 2018, Zomato launched its annual multi-city food and entertainment carnival called Zomaland.

In March 2019, Zomato sold its UAE food delivery business to Talabat. In September 2019, the firm laid off almost 10% of its workforce (540 people) tending to back-end activities like customer service, merchant and delivery partner support functions.

In April 2020, due to a fall in food delivery and rising demand for online grocery ordering amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Zomato began delivering groceries and essentials under a service named Zomato Market in 80+ cities across India. In April 2020, it introduced contactless dining at its partner restaurants. In May 2020, Zomato also began delivering alcohol in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha after obtaining the permission of the governments in these states. In May 2020, Zomato further laid off 520 employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zomato closed operations of Zomato Market in June 2020 as demand for food delivery recovered and grocery delivery business “was not scalable”. In April 2021, it pulled out of alcohol delivery service citing poor unit economics and scalability.

In July 2021, Zomato went public, opening its initial public offering at a valuation of over US$8 billion.

In November 2021, Zomato ceased its services in all countries except India and the United Arab Emirates.

In April 2022, Zomato launched a pilot of 10-minute food delivery in Gurgaon called Zomato Instant. In June 2022, Zomato announced the acquisition of quick-commerce company Blinkit for US$568 million.

In August 2022, Zomato launched a service called Intercity Legends in Delhi NCR that allowed users to have food delivered from famous restaurants in other cities within a few days. In November 2022, Zomato introduced Zomato Pay feature, which allowed users to make payments at partner restaurants and avail offers, and partner restaurants to promote themselves.

Circa February 2023, Zomato ceased operations in Australia, while announcing that their operations in India and the UAE were continuing.

In June 2023, Zomato launched a feature that enabled users to build carts from up to four restaurants and place the order together. In October 2023, the company started offering hyperlocal package delivery service on a separate app called Xtreme.

Funding

• 2010 to 2013 – Zomato raised approximately US$16.7 million from Info Edge across four rounds; Info Edge held a 57.9% stake in Zomato in February 2013. In November 2013, Zomato raised US$37 million from Sequoia Capital and Info Edge.
• November 2014 – Zomato completed another round of funding of US$60 million at a post-money valuation of ~US$660 million. This round of funding was being led jointly by Info Edge and Vy Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital.
• April 2015 – Info Edge, Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital led another round of funding for US$50 million. This was followed by another US$60 million funding led by Temasek, a Singapore government-owned investment company, along with Vy Capital in September.
• February 2018 – Zomato became a unicorn startup after raising US$200 million from Ant Financial at a valuation of US$1.1 billion. In October 2018, Zomato reported that it would raise an additional $210 million from Ant Financial at a valuation of around $2 billion.
• September 2020 – Zomato raised $62 million from Temasek, after previously committed investment from Ant Financial did not come through. In October 2020, as part of a Series J round of funding, Zomato raised $52 million from Kora, a US-based investment firm.
• February 2021 – Zomato raised US$250 million from five investors, including Tiger Global Management, at a valuation of US$5.4 billion.

Acquisitions

Zomato has acquired several startups globally.

• In July 2014, Zomato made its first acquisition by buying MenuMania for an undisclosed sum.
• The company pursued other acquisitions including lunchtime.cz and obedovat.sk for a combined US$3.25 million.
• In September 2014, it acquired Poland-based restaurant search service Gastronauci for an undisclosed sum.
• In December 2014, it acquired Italian restaurant search service Cibando.
• It acquired Seattle-based food portal, Urbanspoon, for an estimated US$60 million in 2015.
• Other acquisitions of 2015 include Mekanist in an all-cash deal,the Delhi-based startup MapleGraph that built MaplePOS (renamed Zomato Base), and NexTable, a US-based table reservation and restaurant management platform.
• In 2016, Zomato acquired Gurgaon-based technology startup Sparse Labs and renamed it as Zomato Trace.
• In 2017, it acquired the food delivery startup Runnr (renamed from Roadrunnr when it acquired TinyOwl in 2016).
• In September 2018, it acquired Bengaluru-based food e-marketplace, TongueStun Food, for about US$18 million in a cash and stock deal.
• In December 2018, it acquired a Lucknow-based startup, TechEagle Innovations, that works exclusively on drones, for an undisclosed amount. Zomato claimed that the acquisition will help pave the way towards drone-based food delivery in India, building technology aimed at a hub-to-hub delivery network.
• On 21 January 2020, Zomato acquired its rival Uber Eats’ business in India in an all stock deal, giving Uber Eats 10% of the combined business.
• On 29 June 2021, the firm acquired a 9.3% stake in Grofers for nearly US$120 million.
• On 24 June 2022, Zomato acquired Blinkit (formerly Grofers) for US$568 million in an all-stock deal.

Security breaches

On 4 June 2015, an Indian security researcher hacked the Zomato website and gained access to information about 62.5 million users. Using the vulnerability, he was able to access the personal data of users such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and Instagram private photos using their Instagram access token. Zomato fixed the issue within 48 hours of it becoming apparent.

On 18 May 2017, a security blog called HackRead claimed that over 17 million Zomato user records including emails and password hashes had been stolen due to a security breach. The company stated that no payment information or credit card details were stolen.The hacker removed the stolen user data from the dark web after Zomato agreed to start a bug bounty program.

Feeding India

Started in 2014 by Ankit Kawatra, Feeding India is a nonprofit organisation which serves free meals to underprivileged people with the help of volunteers. Feeding India was acquired by Zomato in July 2019. In May 2022, Zomato claimed that Feeding India was serving over 200,000 meals every day under its Daily Feeding Program.

In December 2022, Post Malone headlined Zomato Feeding India’s benefit concert to raise awareness about malnutrition in India.

Achievements

Zomato has earned a Guinness world record for holding the world’s largest first aid lesson, by training 4,300 delivery partners in total, at the single event on June 12th.