NewsZomato, restaurant directory, restaurant apps, Tech startups
Sep 09, 2015 06:18 AM EDT
Indian-based restaurant search app Zomato acquired $60M from Temasek Holdings and Vy Capital. The search app will use it to expand the business to other countries and to introduce other services like Zomato Whitelabel.
The two investment firms, Temasek Holdings, an investment company from Singapore and Vy Capital from Dubai funded Zomato in a fresh round with $60M, according to The Hindu Business Line. Zomato today acquired a total of $225M from four investors; Sequoia India, Info Edge, Vy Capital and Temasek.
The restaurant search app plans to use its funds for new services. "We will use this round to make investments in our new businesses such as online ordering, table reservations, point of sales, and our newly launched Whitelabel platform. With this round, and with some of our markets turning profitable recently, Zomato is well capitalised for at least two years," Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a report from Venture Beat.
The Whitelabel platform is one of Zomato's newest features that will help restaurants to expand their businesses online, personalizing their apps for customers. It also provides analytics to monitor the number of customers engaged in the app.
Zomato was founded in India in 2008. It displays full information to 1.4 million restaurants through the app and the website. The service has 3000 employees in 22 countries. It has 90 million visitors and reviewers worldwide. The app gives complete details of restaurants you selected, including contact information, address, maps, user reviews and menus.
According to The International Business Times, last week, Zomato just bought two delivery companies in India; Pickingo and Grab to accommodate food transport on dine-in only restaurants. Zomato also purchased Urbanspoon this year and is targeting to acquire Yelp.
Certainly, India has been a place for growing numbers of startups. With the demand for such restaurant apps, Zomato will dominate the global market in the near future.