The much-talked about initial public offering (IPO) of foodtech unicorn Zomato is set to launch on Wednesday, July 14. The company, which was founded in 2008 as a food listing platform named Foodiebay, 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.
Now, the company — which is eyeing a post-issue valuation of Rs 64,365 crore at the upper-end of its issue price range of Rs 72-76 a share — is expected to soon launch online grocery services on its app, as it continues with its experiments in the grocery 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 with CTO Gunjan Patidar and CEO Deepinder Goyal, who continued to scale the business after Pankaj moved on from Zomato in 2018.
Ahead of Zomato’s Rs 9,375 crore IPO, 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 YourStory’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.”
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddha in 2008
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 YourStory 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
YourStory’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 YourStory 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 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
Deepinder Goyal and Gaurav Gupta
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% 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.
Akriti Chopra, CFO, Zomato
2021
Zomato raises $250 million; signs a deal with Grofers to invest nearly $120 million in the online grocery firm by acquiring 9.3 percent stakes of the company. Elevates Akriti Chopra to co-founder role.
