Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company
Zomato ( or ) is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company. It was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in more than 1,000 Indian cities and towns, as of 2022–23. Zomato rivals Swiggy in food delivery and hyperlocal space.
History.
Early years (2008 – 2011).
Zomato was founded as FoodieBay in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah who worked for Bain &amp; Company. The website started as a restaurant-listing-and-recommendation portal. They renamed the company Zomato in 2010 as they were unsure if they would "just stick to food" and also to avoid a potential naming conflict with eBay.
With the introduction of .xxx domains in 2011, Zomato also launched "zomato.xxx", a site dedicated to food porn. Later in 2011, Zomato officially launched an online ticketing platform for events.
Expansion (2011 – 2015).
In 2011, it expanded across India to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. In 2012, it expanded operations internationally in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Qatar, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and South Africa. In 2013, it expanded to New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia, with websites and apps available in Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and English languages. In April 2014, it was launched in Chile and Portugal, which was followed by launches in Canada, Lebanon, and Ireland in 2015.
In January 2015, Zomato acquired Seattle-based restaurant discovery portal Urbanspoon, which led to the firm's entry into the United States and Australia. This U.S. expansion brought Zomato into direct competition with similar models such as Yelp and Foursquare.
Late 2010s.
In 2015, Zomato started its food delivery service in India, initially partnering with companies such as Delhivery and Grab to fulfill deliveries from restaurants that did not have their own delivery service.
In April 2015, Zomato acquired the American online table reservation platform NexTable, which was subsequently renamed Zomato Book. In January 2016, it launched Zomato Book's table reservation feature on its application in India. In April 2015, it acquired cloud-based point of sale (PoS) company MapleGraph Solutions, and, in April 2016, launched its own version of PoS for restaurant owners called Zomato Base, comprising menu and inventory management, payment system, and analytics. Later that year, Zomato acquired Sparse Labs (renamed Zomato Trace) and integrated the latter's real-time delivery location tracking technology on its food delivery platform.
In February 2017, the firm announced plans to launch Zomato Infrastructure Services, a cloud kitchen infrastructure service to help partner restaurants expand their presence without incurring any fixed costs. Later that year, it introduced a paid membership program called "Zomato Gold" using which subscribers could get offers and discounts on dining and food delivery at Zomato's partner restaurants.
In 2018, Zomato shut down operations of Zomato Infrastructure Services. The company then acquired WOTU and rebranded it as Hyperpure to supply food ingredients such as grains, vegetables and meat to restaurants from its warehouses. In December 2018, Zomato launched its annual multi-city food and entertainment carnival called Zomaland.
In March 2019, Zomato sold its UAE food delivery business to Talabat. In September 2019, the firm laid off almost 10% of its workforce (540 people) tending to back-end activities like customer service, merchant and delivery partner support functions.
2020s.
In April 2020, due to a fall in food delivery and rising demand for online grocery ordering amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Zomato began delivering groceries and essentials under a service named Zomato Market in 80+ cities across India. In April 2020, it introduced contactless dining at its partner restaurants. In May 2020, Zomato also began delivering alcohol in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha after obtaining the permission of the governments in these states. In May 2020, Zomato further laid off 520 employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zomato closed operations of Zomato Market in June 2020 as demand for food delivery recovered and grocery delivery business "was not scalable". In April 2021, it pulled out of alcohol delivery service citing poor unit economics and scalability.
In July 2021, Zomato went public, opening its initial public offering at a valuation of over US$8 billion.
In November 2021, Zomato announced that it would cease its services in all countries except India and the United Arab Emirates. By early 2024, it had completed the liquidation of more than 10 overseas subsidiaries, which were primarily focused on restaurant discovery and reviews.
In April 2022, Zomato launched a pilot of 10-minute food delivery in Gurgaon called Zomato Instant. In June 2022, Zomato announced the acquisition of quick-commerce company Blinkit for US$568 million.
In August 2022, Zomato launched a service called Intercity Legends in Delhi NCR that allowed users to have food delivered from famous restaurants in other cities within a few days. In November 2022, Zomato introduced Zomato Pay feature, which allowed users to make payments at partner restaurants and avail offers, and partner restaurants to promote themselves.
In June 2023, Zomato launched a feature that enabled users to build carts from up to four restaurants and place the order together. In October 2023, the company started offering hyperlocal package delivery service on a separate app called Xtreme.
In August 2024, Zomato announced the launch of its events and ticketing app called "District" after acquiring Paytm's ticketing business.
Acquisitions.
Zomato has acquired several startups globally.
Security breaches.
On 4 June 2015, an Indian security researcher hacked the Zomato website and gained access to information about 62.5 million users. Using the vulnerability, he was able to access the personal data of users such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and Instagram private photos using their Instagram access token. Zomato fixed the issue within 48 hours of it becoming apparent.
On 18 May 2017, a security blog called HackRead claimed that over 17 million Zomato user records including emails and password hashes had been stolen due to a security breach. The company stated that no payment information or credit card details were stolen. The hacker removed the stolen user data from the dark web after Zomato agreed to start a bug bounty program.
Feeding India.
Started in 2014 by Ankit Kawatra, Feeding India is a nonprofit organisation which serves free meals to underprivileged people with the help of volunteers. Feeding India was acquired by Zomato in July 2019. In May 2022, Zomato claimed that Feeding India was serving over 200,000 meals every day under its Daily Feeding Program.
Zomato Feeding India has organised benefit concerts in Mumbai to raise awareness about malnutrition in India; it was headlined by Post Malone (in 2022) and Dua Lipa (in 2024).
References.
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