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Tag: Deepinder Goyal

  • Zomato acquires Italian restaurant search service Cibando

    Zomato acquires Italian restaurant search service Cibando

    MUMBAI: Zomato, a restaurant search service already present across 20 countries, has acquired Italy’s leading restaurant search service Cibando.

     

    Cibando will soon be integrated with Zomato, and over the next few months, users will be able to use Zomato for all major cities in Italy.

    Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said, “Cibando is one of the largest restaurant search services in Italy. Their existing traffic and user base will give us a great start as we launch Zomato in the country. And we love the Cibando team – I think we have a lot to learn from them about the local market. The entire Cibando team is joining Zomato and will lead the effort of building the business in Italy. We are really excited to be joining forces with them as we focus on being Italy’s — and the world’s — go-to restaurant search service.”

    Cibando founder and CEO Guk Kim said, “Zomato has been expanding at a rapid pace, and we’re excited about being part of that journey. Together, we will be able to offer detailed information for even more restaurants to our users in Italy and beyond, while also helping restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers effectively.”

    “Our immediate focus will be on integrating Cibando into Zomato, and on building the most comprehensive restaurant search service for the Italian market. We will also scale up our teams in Rome and Milan to 30-40 full-time employees in the next three months.” Goyal added.

    This is Zomato’s fifth acquisition in the recent months. Zomato acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland recently.

     

  • Zomato raises $60 million from Vy Capital and existing investors

    Zomato raises $60 million from Vy Capital and existing investors

    MUMBAI: Zomato, the popular restaurant search and discovery service, has closed a fresh round of funding of $60 million at a post-money valuation of $660 million.

    These funds will be used to accelerate Zomato’s global expansion and new product development. This round of funding is being led jointly by Info Edge (India) and Vy Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital. This takes Zomato’s total funding to over $113 million. Zomato has earlier raised $53 million from Info Edge (India) and Sequoia Capital over multiple rounds of funding.

    Founded in 2008, Zomato provides up-to-date detailed information, menus and photos for over 300,000 restaurants across the 18 countries it is present in on both web and mobile.

    Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said, “Zomato is well on its way to becoming the world’s local expert in dining out. In the past year, we have added eight countries and millions of new users to our foodie truck. From just restaurant discovery and menus, Zomato has now become a vast global community driven by social interactions. This is an exciting point in our journey, as we accelerate our way across the globe, and build a product that will continue to redefine the way people dine.”

    Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani added, “Our first investment in Zomato was made almost 4 years ago, and the team has shown phenomenal progress since then to build the Zomato that we know and use. The company is growing very fast, and we are proud to back them up to further grow the business – both inside and outside of India.”

    Vy Capital founding partner Alexander Tamas said, “Zomato is one of the first internet companies out of India with a consumer product that is scaling on a global basis and a team that is executing extremely well against the opportunity. We look forward to being long-term partners of the company as it establishes itself among the global internet leaders.”

    Headquartered in New Delhi, Zomato plans to expand to 14 more countries across Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

     

  • Meet the Heart: Zomato shows its passion for food

    Meet the Heart: Zomato shows its passion for food

     MUMBAI: For Indians, food is love. We tend to show how much we love a person by feeding the other till he/she gets indigestion!

     

    Maybe that’s why the experiment called Zomato, which started six years ago, has crossed borders and is serving millions across the globe. “Looking back, we loved our food too much to go with boring, predictable choices. Or worse still, take a chance with a poor one. So we built something that would help everyone discover more than the usual. Before we knew it, our colleagues and friends were using this treasure trove of information, encouraging us to do more,” wrote the founder and co-founder Deepinder Goyal in a blog recalling how he and his team would have killed to get where they are right now.

     

    Currently available in 17 countries and five languages, Zomato, has rebranded itself to keep pace with the transition it is going through. “As a global brand, we felt we needed a logo that could transcend languages, cultures, and geographical boundaries, and be recognised easily by people the world over,” said the company’s CMO Rameet Arora.

     

    Goyal wrote that now people spend way too much time in front of screens on the digital social networks, and have stopped connecting with people in real life. “But we believe that a good meal, along with good company, is where we find answers to all of life’s challenges. A bad meal, even with good company, takes days to digest. This simple belief about ‘people and food’ gives us our wings and purpose.”

     

    And hence, came the “heart” in the restaurant search and discovery platform. The new logo signifies its connection with those who share Zomato’s passion for food. The idea for the logo came from within Zomato, based on its philosophy and constant interaction with its consumers over the years. “We worked closely with Helvetic Brands of Switzerland to develop the design for the logo; the brand identity was defined and created in-house,” informed Arora.

     

    And that’s not all. It recently announced the launch of its operations in Toronto providing detailed information for over 11,000 restaurants. “We currently see more than 30 million visits to our website and mobile apps every month. We are focused on becoming the world’s ‘go to’ restaurant search service and dining – our experts and our product pipeline are geared towards taking us there as we steadily expand our global footprint,” highlighted Arora.

     

    In the coming few months, it is focused on growing internationally with launches in Malaysia, Vietnam, Ireland, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Colombia in the pipeline.

  • Zomato acquires Gastronauci.pl

    Zomato acquires Gastronauci.pl

    Zomato has acquired Poland’s restaurant search service, Gastronauci.

     

    Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said, “Ola and the Gastronauci team have built an excellent product that has a significant mind share in Poland. We are very happy to welcome Gastronauci into the Zomato family. Both Zomato and Gastronauci are committed towards building the best platform possible to connect users and the restaurant industry. We are excited to work on building an integrated product combining our technology with Gastronauci’s exhaustive reach in Poland.”

     

    The team at Gastronauci will be working closely with the Zomato team following the acquisition.

     

    “We have had great success in building a strong and engaging user base for Gastronauci in Poland since 2007. This is an exciting new chapter for us and we look forward to working with Zomato and use their technology and product expertise to bring a new enhanced experience for both consumers and merchants,” said Gastronauci founder and CEO Ola Lazar.

     

    Zomato international operations director Pramod Rao added, “We are planning to expand into multiple geographies in the immediate future and expansion in Europe is one of our key focus areas. We are delighted to have Gastronauci on board and look forward to strengthening our presence further in Central and Eastern Europe.”

     

    Zomato has been aggressively expanding its global presence over the past two quarters, while also strengthening its presence in existing 16 markets. In August 2014, Zomato acquired Lunchtime.cz and Obedovat.sk, the Czech Republic’s and Slovakia’s most popular restaurant guides respectively, for a combined amount of $3.25 million. Shortly before that, in July 2014, Zomato acquired MenuMania, the leading restaurant discovery service in New Zealand. The three acquisitions in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are strategic moves to establish Zomato’s presence as a leader in the restaurant discovery space in central and eastern Europe.