Zomato raises Rs 228 cr in fresh funding, is it getting into Yelp territory?

Zomato, a web-based restaurant search engine, has raised Rs 227.6 crore from Sequoia Capital and Info Edge India Ltd to fund its expansion in overseas markets in one of the largest funding rounds for a consumer internet company in India. Info Edge, which is an existing investor in Zomato, said in a separate filing to the stock exchanges that it had invested Rs 57 crore in Zomato in the latest round. This takes Zomato's total funding to over $53 million (about Rs 328.6 cr); Zomato had earlier raised $16.5 million (Rs 102.3 cr) from Info Edge over four rounds of funding. Based on the deal, the company is valued at over Rs 900 crore, reports The Economic Times. Zomato is going the route of personalised reviews and global expansion. Expanding its global presence, the company has also announced the launch of its services in three new countries – Brazil (Sao Paulo), Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara), and Indonesia (Jakarta). In these three countries, Zomato will be available in local languages as well — Portuguese, Turkish, and Bahasa Indonesia respectively. In addition to these, Zomato has also expanded its services within the UK from three cities to five, with the inclusion of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato said, "This is an exciting phase for us. We believe that we can disrupt restaurant search with our rich content-driven model. This financing will help us develop a product that will change the way people look for restaurant recommendations around them. We are excited to partner with Sequoia Capital as our venture partner to help us succeed internationally, and we can look forward to seeing Zomato in many more countries over the next couple of years." Goyal had earlier told Firstpost that they had listed global restaurants despite an increase in the number of restaurants in India because the per capita penetration in India is still low. "Auckland, for instance has 3,500 restaurants. There are only three cities in India that have more than 3,500 restaurants – Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore," he had said. Started in 2008 by IIT Delhi college-mates Deepinder Goyal, 30 and Pankaj Chaddah, 27, Zomato is a restaurant guide providing in-depth information for over 160,000 restaurants in 35 cities across 11 countries. So, is India's Zomato trying to get into global giant Yelp's territory? Globally, the most valuable company in restaurant listing space is Yelp with a market cap in excess of $4.5 billion (Rs 27,000 crore). Headquartered in San Francisco, Yelp was founded by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons in 2004. It received $130 million in venture finance before going public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012 with a valuation of about $898 million. The website attracts more than 100 million unique visitors per month. Zomato, which claims nearly 15 million users visit its website every month, earns about 65 percent of its revenue from India while the rest comes from markets such as the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and South Africa. Over the next two years, Zomato plans to expand to 22 more countries across Europe, South-East Asia, Australia and the US. Disclosure: Burrp, which is part of Network18 that also owns Firstpost, is engaged in a similar business as Zomato.


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