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Zomato‘s much-awaited IPO debut – advanced from July 27 to July 23 – is a historic moment for Indian tech startups and is likely to set the stage for other companies, including Paytm and Policybazaar, to follow. With this, Zomato has also become the first unicorn in India to hit the IPO landmark. 

Unlike a typical listing ceremony, Zomato’s bell ringing ceremony is going to be a five minute low-key affair, and the bell is to be opened or ringed by the ‘riders’ digitally, a Zomato spokesperson told YS. The company has a total of 169,802 active delivery partners, according to its prospectus.

The stock-listing ceremony is one of the most notable events for any company. Usually, the listing witnesses keynotes from the management, and bell-ringing by the founder or CXO of the company. The ceremony happens at the stock exchanges’ convention centres, but this time it is going to be a digital event.

Zomato offered shares with a face value of Re 1 in a price band of Rs 72-76 apiece. The IPO, which opened on July 14 and closed on July 16, was oversubscribed by over 38 times. 

The company, which was founded in 2008 as Foodiebay, a food listing platform, and has come a long way since Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chhadah began working on this idea in 2008, while they were at Bain Consulting.

By 2011, just three years after it was founded, Zomato became the go-to place for restaurant search and discovery. In the years since, it has been extensively expanding its operations, foraying into new categories, markets, and launching new services and offerings to emerge as one of the category leaders in the space. 

In the past two years, the company has elevated Gaurav Gupta, its food delivery division head Mohit Gupta, and its Chief People Officer Akriti Chopra as co-founders along with CTO Gunjan Patidar and CEO Deepinder Goyal, who continue to scale the business after Pankaj moved on from Zomato in 2018.

We take a walk down memory lane to highlight some key milestones in the company’s journey so far.

2008: Launch of food listing platform, Foodiebay

A glimpse from YS’s first coverage of Zomato from 2008: “When they (Deepinder and Pankaj) were in college and moved on to become executives in Bain Consulting, it was always a struggle to find menus of restaurants around. They had to either head to the restaurants directly or ask friends for the menu so that they could order food. This need formed the genesis of the idea to start Foodiebay, where they could make the menus of restaurants available online.”

But the ride has not been easy for Deepinder and Pankaj. Deepinder started “foodlet.com” some time ago. The venture was to have tie-ups with restaurants and put up their promotions through Foodlet.com, while customers can order food online through the platform. Deepinder now wants to focus first on making Foodiebay, his current passion, a huge success and then evolving the features of Foodlet into it.”

Full YS article from 2008 here

2010

Foodiebay rebrands itself as Zomato; the duo focus on it full time; Co-founder and CTO Gunjan Patidar joins the company 

YS’s coverage from 2010: Foodiebay.com, an online food guide and restaurant directory, has rebranded itself as Zomato.com. According to the company, Zomato is derived from the word ‘tomato’ and has a zing to it which adds to the brand recall. The rebranding is aimed at helping the company expand its areas of operations beyond food and restaurant listings and enter the nightlife listing business.

Deepinder Goyal said, “We saw that if we wanted to touch broader horizons then the name Foodiebay wouldn’t be the best choice as it constraints our perception to one of a food website. Another thought at the back of our minds was to prevent any overstepping of eBay when we start accepting online payments. So, we decided to keep the idea of food at the centre but choose a name that is timeless and encompassing – Zomato.” 

Vivek Khare, senior vice president, corporate development, Info Edge India, has added, “The new name is more marketable and should open new horizons to expand to. I am sure the team has a long way to go and Zomato will carry the success of Foodiebay to the next level.” Full YS article from 2010 here

2011

Zomato becomes the go-to place for restaurant search and discovery. Also in the same year, it launched event ticketing but shelved it soon after; expanded to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata. Full story here

2012

Built the first Android and iOS app; Zomato goes international Zomato expanded into UAE, Sri Lanka, Qatar, UK, Philippines, and South Africa in 2012. Full story here

2013

Raises $16.7 million from InfoEdge. Full story here

2013

Raises $37 million from Sequoia Capital and InfoEdge; also expands to New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia . Full story here

2014

Makes its first acquisition Menu-mania for an undisclosed sum.

Acquires Poland-based restaurant search service Gastronauci for an undisclosed sum and Italian restaurant search service Cibando.

Raises $60 million at a post-money valuation of $660 million. 

2015

Launches food delivery. Faces its first major roadblock: a data breach, which the team resolved in 12 hours. Raises $50 million and $60 million in two rounds in the same year. 

Zomato also acquired Seattle-based food portal, Urbanspoon, for an estimated $60 million. Other acquisitions in the same year include MapleGraph, renamed as Zomato Base, NexTable, a US-based table reservation and restaurant management platform.

2016

Acquisition spree continues: acquires Sparse Labs, a logistics technology startup. Full story here

2017

Launches Zomato Infrastructure services, a service to help restaurants; also acquires Runnr. Full story here

2018

Becomes a unicorn; raises $180 million and later $210 million from Alibaba’s Ant Financial, valued at $2 billion; acquires TongueStun for $18 million; enters the B2B space by acquiring WOTU and rebranding it as Hyperpure. Co-founder Pankaj Chaddah exits the company. 

2019

Elevates Gaurav Gupta to co-founder role. Full story here

2020

Acquires UberEats business in India in an all-stock deal, giving Uber Eats 10 percent of the combined business. Raises $62 million from Temasek; Zomato raises $52 million from Kora, a US-based investment firm. Launches grocery business, Zomato Market. Elevates Mohit Gupta to co-founder role. 

2021

Zomato raises $250 million; signs a deal with Grofers to invest nearly $100 million in the online grocery firm by acquiring 9.3 percent stakes of the company. Elevates Akriti Chopra to co-founder role.

July 2021: Zomato IPO launch

Disclaimer: Updates story to clarify that Zomato invested $100 million in Grofers, as part of a $120 million round.