Introduction
Zomato is an online restaurant search and discovery service providing information on home delivery, dining-out, cafés, and nightlife in cities of India and 20 other countries. It was started as Foodiebay.com in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. In 2010 it was renamed as Zomato. Currently, Zomato has over 1 million restaurants listed worldwide including restaurants in 24 countries such as UAE, UK, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Philippines etc., and 10K+ cities globally. Headquartered out of Gurgaon (India), the startup recently raised $200Million at a valuation of $1Billion from Ant Financials (Alibaba’s payment affiliate).
What is Zomato?
Zomato is a restaurant search and discovery website with over 120 million monthly users. The company provides information on restaurants, including user reviews, ratings, images and contact information. Zomato’s business model involves selling online ordering and delivery services to restaurants that do not offer it themselves, as well as to small businesses that use its platform for their own websites or apps.[9][10]
Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008, who were classmates at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Goyal has said that he started the website because he felt there was no guidebook for people looking for restaurants while traveling abroad. In the early days of Zomato, the founders struggled to find funding; they eventually got seed capital from Info Edge which invested $60K in 2008. In 2011 Info Edge invested another $1 million into Zomato. The site received angel investments from Kunal Bahl (founder Snapdeal), Rohit Bansal (co-founder Flipkart), Ashish Kashyap (CEO Designate Shopclues). In 2013 Info Edge bought majority stake in Zomato for about Rs 106 crore ($17 million).
The company operates across 23 countries globally through its offices located in India, United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia. It also has operations in the UAE[25].
Features of Zomato
Zomato is a restaurant search engine, restaurant discovery platform, and a food ordering platform. Zomato operates in 28 countries across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The company’s products include an online food delivery service (Zomato Order), table reservations through its website or app (Zomato Reservation), home delivery for orders placed through its website or app (Zomato Home Delivery) and an API for partners to integrate their own apps with Zomato services via the Developer Platform.
All these features can be accessed on their website www.zomato.com
Pros and Cons of Zomato
Pros:
- The app is free to download and use. You also don’t have to register on the app before you can use it.
- It has a huge database of restaurants all over the world in different countries, so you are sure to find a restaurant near your location.
Cons:
- There could be some restaurants that might not be listed in the database because they have not updated their information yet or because they do not want their information displayed on Zomato.
Future of Zomato
Zomato is a complete guide to food. It is the world’s largest restaurant discovery platform and food ordering and delivery platform. With 90 million monthly users, it has become one of the most popular apps in India.
Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah, Nilesh Kothari and Ambur Iyyappa in 2008 as an online restaurant listings guide. In 2010 they started to expand their operations across cities in India with their mobile app Zomato Order which allowed users to order food from nearby restaurants in real time through their phones or tablets while they are on the go! The company then went global by launching its services outside of India in 2011 with Mumbai as its first international office followed by London later that year!
In 2013 Zomato launched Foodiebay – an online marketplace where people could buy/sell locally sourced products like fresh produce & dairy products produced by farmers directly from each other without any middlemen involved at all! This initiative helped promote local economy growth around rural areas because now anyone would be able to grow crops or raise animals without needing them anymore…
It started in 2008 as Foodiebay.com and now, it’s one of the most popular online food delivery platforms in India.
Zomato is a restaurant search and food delivery platform, which started as Foodiebay.com in 2008 and now has more than 1.5 million restaurants on its platform. It’s a global company with operations in 24 countries around the world.
Conclusion
The best way to understand Zomato is by using it. Hands-on experience will give you a better idea of how they work.
