Announcing a fresh funding of $100 million from Tiger Global on Thursday even while businesses remain hit due to coronavirus, Zomato now looks to raise $600 million before the public issue goes live in 2021.Deepinder Goyal-founded 12-year-old startup Zomato, which started as a weekend project during the IITian Goyal’s college days, is now headed towards an IPO. Announcing a fresh funding of $100 million from Tiger Global on Thursday even while businesses remain hit due to coronavirus, Zomato now looks to raise $600 million before the public issue goes live in 2021. Right before it opens to the public, Zomato also looks to close a $30-million share sale for its former employees, which is expected to be one of the most significant ESOP liquidity events in India. Here’s a look back at how far Zomato has come since the days its founder incepted the idea.
Zomato’s Dominos connection
“It was towards the end of my five years at IIT that I was ordering a Dominos Pizza and back then, you had to call and place an order. So while in college I started a food ordering company, it did not work. It was way too early,” Deepinder Goyal, co-founder of Zomato, said in a Twitter live chat in July. However, Deepinder Goyal then dumped the idea to join the corporate world. During his stint at Bain and Co, he realised that there was a need in the market for a food listing platform. What started as a weekend project then has become the online food ordering giant that we know now.
Up and about
In the course of 12 years that followed, Foodiebay, which was the initial name of the company, got rechristened to Zomato; and in 2010, it raised angel investment. Two years after that in 2012, Zomato went international with a debut in the UAE market. In 2015, Zomato launched food delivery, and in January 2020, it acquired UberEats. This, with numerous other milestones along the way, resulted in a startup, which now has a valuation of $3 billion with a presence in 24 countries. In FY20, Zomato doubled its revenue to $394 million. While coronavirus has impacted its business, founder Deepinder Goyal is confident that it is merely a “blip” in the company’s journey towards next 100 years.
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