Eyeing To Lead FoodTech: Zomato Will Soon Be Delivering Food, Investing $50 Mn

Online restaurant guide Zomato is now all set to deliver food to its customers, as the company has announced its plans to invest $50 Mn for the launch of food delivery business. “The service will also be launched overseas in the next few months,” Deepinder Goyal told ET.

This move by the company is to overtake other companies including foodPanda and Yelp.

Zomato will be starting with food delivery in India during the Cricket World Cup and will cover 2,000 restaurants in March, which will be extended to 10,000 restaurants in the next six months.

The company will be launching the service in Dubai, Manila, Jakarta and Sydney soon after the Indian launch.

In past one year, Zomato had acquired 7 startups across globe including recent acquisition of Urbanspoon which was acquired for $52 Mn to enter the US and Australian markets. Other startups under its kitty include, Turkey’s popular restaurant research service firm Mekanist, Italy-based web and mobile restaurant search services startup Cibando Ltd; MenuMania in New Zealand; Lunchtime in the Czech Republic; Obedovat in Slovakia; and Gastronauci in Poland.

Launched back in 2008, Delhi-based Zomato was founded by IIT Delhi alumni and ex-Bain employees Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, the company claims to get around 35 Mn visits per month across its website and mobile app.

Zomato has raised more than $113 Mn, over multiple rounds of funding from Info Edge, Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital last year.

The food tech space has seen a lot of action in past few months, last week, foodPanda had acquired JustEat India operations. foodpanda also acquired TastyKhana a couple of weeks back. Number of startups in this space have also raised funding recently, including Pune-based tech focussed QSR chain Faaso’s, which raised $20 Mn from LightBox Ventures and Sequoia Capital, Yumist, FRSH and Holachef got funding of $1 Mn, about $250k – $200k and INR 2 Cr. respectively.