Zomato Onboards Former BookMyShow Executive Kunal Khambhati

In the run up to the launch of its District app, Zomato has bolstered its ‘going out’ vertical by roping in BookMyShow’s former live events and IP head Kunal Khambhati. 

Khambhati worked with BookMyShow for over seven years and led live events and intellectual property development for all markets, including India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. He left the company in April, as per his LinkedIn profile. 

Sources close to Zomato confirmed that Khambhati has joined the company. However, Inc42 couldn’t ascertain his designation for the new role.

The Ken was the first to report about him joining Zomato. 

Khambhati will join other senior executives that Zomato recently onboarded to bolster its going out business. In July, the company brought back Rahul Ganjoo and Pradyot Ghate, who left Zomato in 2023. Back then, it was reported that the two executives will helm the going-out business. 

Zomato has been teasing the launch of a new app ‘District’ for the going-out business since August. The app will allow customers to discover and book restaurants and book tickets for movies, sports, live performances, among others.

To take on BookMyShow, the leader in the live events space, Zomato acquired Paytm’s entertainment ticketing business in August for INR 2,048 Cr. 

In a recent interview to Moneycontrol, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said that the company plans to upgrade stadiums in the country to provide a better experience for the customers in the live events space. 

“We’ll have to (build stadiums) at some point. Otherwise, the song, the artists, the work and experience will not really be worthwhile. We won’t build like a Zomato stadium but we will partner with someone and propose to upgrade the infrastructure and give the stadium a facelift. We can take care of the capex, and in exchange ask for 40 rental free days in a year,” the publication quoted him as saying. 

It is pertinent to mention that the live events space is seeing a strong demand in the country. In fact, Zomato, which was the exclusive ticketing partner for Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Dil-luminati Tour – India’, saw the tickets for the concert being sold out in minutes and being resold at sky-high prices on ticket reselling platforms after it. The same was the case with BookMyShow, which was the partner for ‘Coldplay: Music Of The Spheres World Tour’.

Shares of Zomato ended Tuesday’s trading session 4.75% higher at INR 279 on the BSE. 

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