Zomato, India’s leading restaurant aggregator and food delivery startup recently secured US$150M from Alibaba affiliate Chinese investor Ant Financial as a part of a larger round. This funding has come after a funding round in Nov 2019 when Ant Financial raised its stake from 14.7 percent to 23 percent. Zomato is currently valued at US$3B.
Gurugram based Zomato was founded in 2008 with an original name as Foodiebay. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah are its co-founders. Zomato’s service is available in more than 10,000 cities. Moreover, it has successfully expanded its presence in 24 countries around the globe.
The company recently reached an important milestone of processing more than 1.3 million orders daily. In fact, nearly 150,000 restaurants around the world are associated with Zomato. Thus on average, the startup is roughly delivering ten orders per restaurant per day which is phenomenal. The majority of the customers are from India. In FY 2019, the startup has managed to triple its revenue to US$206 Million from US$68 Million in FY 2018.
There are various firms apart from Ant Financial who invested in this startup like Info Edge India, Vy Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Temasek. This funding has come at a time when the food delivery start-up has widened its losses.
Future Plans and efficient fund utilization by Zomato
The company is looking to buy UberEat’s business in India for US$400 Million. This funding will help the start-up to compete with its biggest rival Swiggy which is about to raise US$750M from its existing investor Naspers. Zomato will further take care of its cash burn and will try to minimize its losses. Although there is news of the merger of Swiggy and Zomato, the later has refuted this. The company is aiming to enhance its profitability in the upcoming financial year.
CEO and Founder, Deepinder Goyal says that Zomato will further raise $500-600M in the upcoming six months to enhance sustainability and delivery experience. Some sources anticipate that Uber is planning to invest $100-200M in Zomato.
Keep an eye on the buzzling FoodTech space in India. After all, its about food in a market of over a billion people.
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