Zomato: An Indian Startup acquiring the

world
INTRODUCTION
Zomato is a restaurant search and discovery service founded in
2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. It currently
operates in 23 countries, including India, Australia and the United
States. It features restaurant information such as scanned menus
and photos sourced by local street teams, as well as user reviews
and ratings.
The company also provides cashless payment, online ordering,
white-label apps, table reservation, and point-of-sale systems.
Zomato was initially named as Foodiebay. It is a restaurant
searching platform providing in-depth details with autonomous
reviews and ratings. Foodiebay,
the initial name was changed to Zomato in November 2010 to
increase their reach among people. Zomato is a restaurant
discovery platform providing comprehensive menus, reviews and
contact details for restaurants. Territories include India, USA,
United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Qatar, the Philippines, South
Africa and now London. Founded in New Delhi in 2008, Zomato
employs approximately 1000 staff over the globe.
To differentiate themselves from their competitors, Zomato
concentrated on adding approx 18,000 new places to eat from.
Along with they also decorated many special features, such as
pointed to particular dishes or opening times.

Type
Private
Founded July 2008
Headquarte
New Delhi, Delhi, India
rs
India, Australia, United States, Canada, Chile,
Czech Republic, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon,
New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal,
Area served
Qatar, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Brazil,
Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom,
Malaysia
Founder(s) Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah
CEO
Deepinder Goyal
Key people

Surobhi Das (COO)

Gunjan Patidar (CTO)

Industry

Consumer Services
Restaurant Search & Discovery, Online Ordering,
Services Table Reservations & Management, Whitelabel
Apps, POS Systems
Employees 2000+
Website zomato.com
Type of site Online restaurant search and discovery service
Advertising Yes
Registration Optional on the website
Users
19 million visits monthly
English, Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Spanish,
Available in
Czech, Slovak, Polish, Italian
Current
Online
status
Native
iOS, watchOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone
client(s) on

HISTORY
The service began as "Foodiebay", conceptualised in the cafeteria
of Bain & Company. Customers would line up to look at the menus
to order food during the lunch hour. Realizing this took up a large
amount of everyone's time on a daily basis, Deepinder and Pankaj
decided to scan restaurant menus and upload it on an intranet
website for Bain employees. The website saw a lot of traffic and
was launched publicly in 2008.
The website began by listing restaurants in Delhi NCR, and quickly
expanded to Kolkata and then Mumbai.
In March 2010, Zomato (Foodiebay) was named among the top 25
most promising internet companies in India by SmartTechie
Magazine. Soon after, Info Edge (India), the parent company of
the Naukri.com group, invested 4.7 crore (US$1 million) in the
business.
In November 2010, Foodiebay was renamed to Zomato. The brand
name was changed due to a possible move outside of the food
sector and also to avoid possible confusion with eBay, as the
earlier brand name Foodiebay contained "ebay" in it.
By 2011, Zomato started coverage in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai,
Hyderabad and Ahmedabad and they launched applications for
iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices. Following
the introduction of .xxx domains in 2011, Zomato also launched
zomato.xxx, a site dedicated to food porn. The company also
launched a print version of the content on the website known as
the "Citibank Zomato Restaurant Guide" in collaboration with
Citibank in May 2012, but has since been discontinued. During the
run, these guides were made available in four cities in India
Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.
By September 2012, Zomato expanded to its first overseas
location, United Arab Emirates, following which, Zomato saw
quick expansion into Sri Lanka, Qatar, the United Kingdom, the
Philippines, and South Africa.
4

The company launched in Auckland and Wellington in New

Zealand in July 2013, and Hamilton in December 2013. It made its
way to Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia in November 2013, with its
website and apps available in Turkish, Brazilian Portuguese,
Indonesian, and English.
2014 was a year full of expanding international reach and
acquisitions. In April, Zomato launched its services in Portugal. In
July, Zomato made its first acquisition by buying New Zealand's
Menu-mania for an undisclosed sum. In August the focus was on
Europe. The company acquired online restaurant guides
Lunchtime.cz (from the Czech Republic) and Obedovat.sk (from
Slovakia) for a combined $3.25 million. In September, Zomato
acquired Poland-based restaurant search service Gastronauci for
an undisclosed sum. In October, Zomato finally entered North
America by launching its services in Canada. Shortly after, in
November, it extended its reach to Lebanon and Ireland as well. In
December, Zomato acquired leading Italian restaurant search
service Cibando.
Zomato started 2015 by acquiring Seattle-based food portal
Urbanspoon for an undisclosed sum (estimated to be around $60
million). The acquisition marked Zomato's entry into the United
States, Canada and Australia, and brought it into direct
competition with Yelp, Zagat and OpenTable. In the same month,
Zomato also acquired Mekanist, one of Turkey's largest restaurant
search players, in an all-cash deal that makes Zomato the most
exhaustive restaurant search service in the country. The
acquisition increased Zomato's coverage from about 27,500
restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to more than 50,000
restaurants across Turkey.
In October 2014, Zomato introduced a new logo the Zomato
heart, which in February 2015 was updated to the Urbanspoon's
Spoon logo in Zomato red. This was done to ensure that the
transition for users from Urbanspoon to Zomato was easier. As per
press reports, Zomato now attracts 90 million monthly visits.
Zomato has recently also broadened its reach and acquired
companies that focus on other aspects of restaurant businesses.
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In April 2015, they acquired a 4 year old Delhi based startup

MapleGraph that built MaplePOS, a cloud-based point of sale
product for restaurants. Zomato renamed the MaplePOS product
to Zomato Base. MaplePOS was Zomatos first acquisition of a
restaurant-focused product outside their core business. In the
same month, Zomato also acquired NexTable, a US-based table
reservation and restaurant management platform. Together,
NexTable and Zomato will launch Zomato Book, a table
reservation system for merchants.
On 4th June, 2015, an Indian security researcher hacked the
Zomato website, gained access to information about 62.5 million
users. Using the vulnerability he was able to access personal data
of users such as phone number, email address, and Instagram
private photos using their Instagram access token. Zomato fixed
the issue within 48 hours of it becoming apparent.
On 15th October, 2015 Zomato changed business strategies from
a Full-Stack market to an enterprise market. This led to Zomato
firing 10% of its workforce which equals about 300 people.

FUNDING
Zomato (then known as Foodiebay) raised its first round of
funding of US$1 million (4.7 crores) from Info Edge (India) in
August 2010. Zomato raised its second round of funding of
US$3.5million (13.5 crores) from the same investor in September
2011. The following year, Zomato raised its third round, of
another $2.5 million followed by its fourth round worth US$10
million from Info Edge in early 2013, giving them a 57.9% stake in
Zomato.
In November 2013, Zomato raised US$37 million (227.6 crores)
from Sequoia Capital and Info Edge (India). Info Edge now owns
50.1% of Zomato on an investment of 143 crores. The total
amount of funding raised by Zomato stood at US$53.5 million as
of November 2013.

In November 2014, Zomato closed a fresh round of funding of

US$60 million at a post-money valuation of ~US$660 million. This
round of funding was being led jointly by Info Edge (India) Limited
and Vy Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital. This took
Zomatos total funding to over US$113 million.
April 2015 saw another round of funding for Zomato, led by Info
Edge, Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital, this time of US $50 million.
Six months later, in September 2015, Zomato raised another
US$60 million, this time led by a new investor, Temasek, a
Singapore government-owned investment company, along with
existing investor, Vy Capital. It will use the investment to further
grow its new business verticals. This takes Zomatos total funding
to ~$225 million which comes from a close set of four investors
Info Edge, Sequoia India, Vy Capital, and now Temasek.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Zomato started by focusing on its restaurant search and
discovery model, and has only increased its efforts over the years
to provide rich and accurate data to its users. Zomato uses a feeton-the-street system and sweeps restaurants every three months
to ensure that the information provided is as recent as possible.
Zomato has expanded beyond its restaurant guide to various
verticals in an attempt to own the entire food experience. Its
latest offerings include Cashless Payments, Online Ordering,
Whitelabel Apps, Table Reservations and Zomato Base. It earlier
had an events section, which has now been discontinued.

Search and discovery :

The search and discovery section began by offering listings in
major cities in India and now lists over 1 million restaurants
across 23 countries. Zomato helps users make dining decisions by
providing a variety of information (ranging from the basic like cost
and popularity to the more minute like Wifi access and whether
the place is pet friendly) to help them narrow down their choices.
One can also search restaurants by location, dish, cuisine and
establishment type.
Zomato also has a variety of social features. It encourages its
users to share their recommendations in the form of reviews,
photos and ratings for restaurants with others. Further, you can
tag friends in your reviews and photos. Also, you have the option
to mark restaurants as Been There, or on the app, Check-in. Your
activity appears chronologically on your profile in the form of your
Foodie Journey. You can also choose to follow foodies (in your city,
or otherwise) so that you can read about their experiences in your
Feed. Similar to personal Feed, there is a feature called City Feed,
which showcases user reviews and photos, realtime so that you
can know what's popular at that moment. You can also bookmark
your favourite restaurants so that you're always updated on the
happenings like events, promotions and specials.
Bringing together the discovery and social aspects of Zomato, the
website and app also have a feature called Collections. Collections
are theme based discovery search to help users make a choice.
The themes are tailored to each city and are based on popular
search categories (e.g.: Kickass Burgers in Delhi, Great
Eggspectations in Melbourne, and Mexican Magic in Seattle). For a
restaurant to feature in a category, it needs to be popular with
the users in terms of reviews and ratings.

Cashless payments :
Zomato introduced cashless payments to improve customer
experiences. With this feature, consumers can go to a partner
restaurant and check-in with the Zomato app. Then, one has to
inform the staff at the restaurant of the mode of payment. Each
user has a unique identity, and the restaurant connects that to
the bill. The payment method integrates with the billing system of
the restaurant, so the diner can order food as he or she normally
would - and the billing happens automatically in the background.
At the moment, Zomato Cashless is available only in Dubai, but
other countries are lined up, starting with New Zealand. The
Zomato Cashless feature is currently available on iOS and Android
devices.

Online ordering :
Zomato recently unbundled online ordering. Users can order food
on the website, or use the app on their iOS and Android devices.
Users can choose between cash on delivery, Zomato Cashless or
e-payment options such as debit or credit cards to pay for their
meal. Zomato Order started in Delhi, and quickly spread to other
cities, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Indore etc. Dubai is the
first International market it launched in, and others are expected
to follow soon. The company also released a new app called
Zomato Order for Android and iOS devices. Zomato stated that it
decided to release a separate app because it believes searching
for information about a restaurant, and ordering online are two
separate use cases.
In September 2015, Zomato partnered with Paytm in India and
integrated the Paytm Wallet with Zomato Order. This move allows

users to order online from a vast number of restaurants, and

make completely cashless payments using the Paytm Wallet.

Whitelabel apps :
In September 2015, Zomato introduced Zomato Whitelabel, a
platform that enables restaurants to launch custom-branded
native mobile apps, and bridge the gap between them and their
customers.

Table reservations :
The acquisition of Nextable, a table management and booking
platform based in North Carolina, USA in April 2015 allowed
Zomato venture into table reservation service. Nextable was
renamed to Zomato Book. Zomato book allows users to book
tables and thus make reservations through the Zomato website as
well as the app.Hundreds of businesses around the world, ranging
from small to 1000+ seat restaurants, and even theme park
resorts, are already using Zomato book. Zomato Book also gives
the restaurant managers a real-time update on what is happening
inside the restaurant, enabling them to maximize their seating
capacity.

Zomato Base :

10

Zomato acquired MaplePOS in 2015 and renamed it Zomato Base.

Base is a cloud-based point of sale product for restaurants. It
offers merchants features such as menu, inventory and recipe
management, real time analytics, electronic receipts etc. It even
has a built-in payment solution to accept debit and credit card
payments. The product is still being readied, and currently there is
little information as to when it'll be available to merchants.
Events (discontinued) :
The Events section on Zomato was introduced in September
2011. This coincided with Zomato's announcement of raising their
second round of funding of $3 million from Info Edge (India) Ltd.
Later, Zomato shut down its events section and included some of
the features into its core restaurant product as confirmed by
Zomato's CEO, Deepinder Goyal on Quora.
Coverage :

Countries where Zomato is available.

Zomato covers over a million restaurants across 10,000+ cities in
23 countries.

VISION

To expand in more than 50 countries.

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MISSION
Our mission is to ensure nobody has a bad meal
- Zomato
And they do this by Helping people discover great places around them :
The team gathers information from every restaurant on a
regular basis to ensure the data is fresh. Their vast
community of food lovers share their reviews and photos, so
we have all that we need to make an informed choice.
Building amazing experiences around dining : Starting
with information for over 1 million restaurants (and counting)
globally, they're making dining smoother and more
enjoyable with services like online ordering and table
reservations.
Enabling restaurants to create amazing experiences :
With dedicated engagement and management tools, they're
enabling restaurants to spend more time focusing on food
itself, which translates directly to better dining experiences.
And they're doing it globally From Vancouver to Auckland, Zomato is used by millions every
day to decide where to eat in over 10,000 cities across 23
countries. In a few years, they should be able help point you to a
great place to eat no matter what part of the world you're in.

MILESTONE
Number of listed restaurants: in 2008 it was 4000
restaurants which increase to 94000 in 2013 and currently
384,100 in Q1 of 2015.
Monthly visitors of Zomato increases to 35 million in 2014
which was 11 million in 2013 and 0.015 million in 2008.

12

 Yearly revenue of Zomato in 2008 was 0.06 crores which

increased to 11.3 crores in 2013. Spread in 23 countries
worldwide.

CULTURE
Flat
1% Done
Ownership
Continuous
Reconstructi
on
Approachabi
lity
Pushing
Boundaries
Bias For
Action
One Team
Think Ahead
Do More
With Less
Respect
Real

We dont delegate targets, we share

goals.
No matter how much weve achieved,
we are only just getting started.
The initiatives we take define our job
description, not the other way round.
Were always ready to trash the past
and disrupt ourselves.
Were always open to ideas, feedback
and questions.
We always stay out o our comfort
zone.
We think fast and we act even faster.
The needs of the many are always
greater than the wants of the few.
There are no shortcuts, always think
long term.
We always make the most with what
we have.
We respect everyone, inside and
outside Zomato.
No bullshit. Keep it real.

13

SUCCESS FACTOR

First mover advantage

Strong content platform
Efficient employees
Good rating mechanism and social platform
Funding from experienced source

STRATEGIES OF ZOMATO
Zomato works with keen interest on various strategies to achieve
their goal. It includes Financial strategy : To increase their fund and revenue
Marketing strategy : To tap their customers from across the
globe
Growth strategy : To grow continuously and increase their
customers and page traffic
Globalization strategy : To expand themselves across the
whole globe as a leading service provider
I. Cost Leadership :
Zomato charges restaurants 7% of each order size, compared to
15-20% charged by rivals because of it, restaurants are able to
keep their prices low and provide the customers quality food,
giving customers an experience of value for money and a reason
to come back.
II. Capital Investment :
Zomato received an initial investment of Rs.4.7 crore from InfoEdge India in August, 2010. Due to high growth rate of the
company, they witnessed an increase in capital fund investment
by Info-Edge. Info-Edge subsequently invested Rs. 13.5 crore in
September, 2011 followed by a $2.5million and $10million
investment in year 2012 and 2013 respectively. By the end of this
period, Info Edge almost had 57% share in the company. With its
plan of expansion to different countries and other cities of India,

14

Zomato was blessed by a whopping $37million investment from

Sequoia Capital and Info Edge in November, 2013.
III. Business Model :
Zomato follows a simple business model. While starting afresh in
the new city, some number of people is assigned in each city to
collect data about the restaurants and clubs around the city.
There is a centralized team based out of NCR which processes
and cross-checks the data to confirm the validity. The data is then
processed to be put up on the website. There is a separate team
for advertising, which sells the website to the restaurant owners
and attracts
them to advertise with Zomato. 95% of the revenues are earned
from advertisements from the local restaurants, while the rest can
be attributed to event ticketing and restaurant booking.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Featured and user friendly website
Global mobile app
Focusing on digital marketing channels for potential
customers
Acquire the competitors : To be the largest resource in food
supply market, Zomato bought urbanspoon for $52 million to
enter US, Canada and Australia
Sales promotion: Coupons and price-offs
Direct Marketing: Phone call and direct mail
Zomato started with direct marketing techniques like SMS and
Direct mailers. Through direct SMS, Zomato targeted six lakh
unique customers as a first stage. Irrespective of users responses
Zomato blasted them with 6 SMS per day for one month. Zomato
believes it increased their reach with this technique. Next is direct
15

email, where they effectively reached corporates in bulk and

hence reached the professional employees which are their
primary target. The mailers were designed in such a way that
they are difficult to classify as spam mails until and unless user
opens the mail. And few users liked reading them during breaks
during office hours. Also using direct emails, they were sending
Monthly newsletters to the subscribers. Because of the nature of
the email, but the average time user spent on this email was only
0.2 seconds. They distributed pamphlets in specific areas. The
pamphlets were very specific to their business. They were
attractive, colourful and of good quality to customers. Right now
Zomato promotes itself as Food Network. On Social Media, they
follow simple strategies of always be there for your customer and
only best content needs to be sent to customers. They treat
Facebook and Twitter as two different platforms. Twitter is more
used for interaction and conversations and Facebook is primarily
used to push their content and to reach more people. Once a user
logs into Zomato with the help of Facebook or Google account,
his/her friends will be automatically identified on the site and they
can easily follow their friends. As the friends ratings are more
trusted by users when compared to Zomatos, influencing factor is
much higher with the help of social media.

In August 2010, Zomato got its first round of funding of $1million

from Info Edge, India. And in September 2011, got its second
round of funding of $3.5million from the same financier. Next year
Zomato upraised its third round of another $2.5 million from the
same investor and again in early 2013, Info Edge funded fourth
round worth $10 million which gives them a 57.9% stake in
16

Zomato. Seeing the future and growth of Zomato, Sequoia Capital

and Info Edge, India in November 2013 funded Zomato with $37
million. Info Edge now owned 50.1% of Zomato on an investment
of INR 143 crores. The total funding raised by Zomato till
November 2013 stands at $53.5 million. In November 2014,
Zomato came up with a fresh round of funding of $60 million at a
post-money valuation of ~US$660 million. This round of funding
was jointly headed by Info Edge India Limited and VY Capital, with
involvement from Sequoia Capital. This made a total funding of
over US$113 million for Zomato. Recently in a fresh round of
funding in April 2015, Info Edge, India has invested an amount of
Rs 155 crore in Zomato. Info Edge said in a statement Being Info
Edges fair share of Zomatos recent fund raises of USD 50
million. Upon completion of the allotment of shares, Info Edges
aggregate investment in Zomato will be about Rs 484 crore. As
the website was launched, it became popular soon and expanded
rapidly, covering many important regions of India including
Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune by the year 2010. Apart
from being a service provider within India, Zomato.com now has
branched to overseas in the regions of Philippines, New Zealand,
Qatar, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and the
UK as well.The website covers a list of over 1, 20,000 restaurants
across all these regions catering to more than 15 million
customers worldwide. With its headquarter in New Delhi,
Zomato.com is providing career opportunity to over 350
employees all across the globe.

17

MARKETING THE BRAND - The evolving art of

Selling
A bit of Zomato
For people who are in oblivion or who have technophobia, there is
news for you, a tad too late but, there is a company called
Zomato which is growing faster than Jacks beanstalk. The food
reviewing business has shown no hints of slowing down and I just
love its aggression of taking on the world. Here are some ideas
which Zomato could look into and this is from a marketers point
of view.
Breaking the glass walls: Now when you know where to
eat, also know what to eat!!!
Zomato has been following the model of eating joints being
reviewed by the crowd. Its now time to for the customer to know
the most liked product of the reviewed restaurant. Just provide a
like button for specific products (decided by the restaurant) and
let customers write comments about the restaurant and
like/dislike the product. This way when a customer surfs through
Zomato and likes a review of a restaurant, he also sees what is
the restaurants specialty as approved by real customers. The
restaurant will have the option of marketing a specific dish in
which it feels it has more grip on (in terms of quality and profits).
While Zomato will gain more customer engagement and probably
another revenue stream.
Loyalty program: More reasons to visit Zomato and call up
your favorite restaurant!!!
I am sure this must be long pending in Mr. Goyals to do list. For a
company like Zomato which is in an industry where entry barriers
are low and customer loyalty fragile, a comprehensive loyalty
18

program is a must. To elaborate I have thought of something of

my own. In a venture with loyalty program experts such as
Payback, Zomato can create a lot of value for its customers at
both ends of the chain. Offer the hungry customer some reward
points if he uses Zomato to book a table or order food. The
problem here is that points here will be independent of the bill
amount, but dependent upon the frequency of the usage. There
could be milestones (eg: 5th time in a month, 10th time in a
month, 3rd time in a week, etc) for which the consumer would get
extra points.
When these points gather enough critical mass, they could be
used by consumer to take a certain discount. For the merchants
this is beneficial as Zomato is providing an additional incentive to
the customers to order food or visit the place. Zomato will see a
more loyal customer base, and increased revenue as they will be
able to divert more traffic to make the bookings through their
application. So they can have solid numbers and better data (the
phone call recordings).
A bit of Analytics: Makes your day special!!!
Zomato knows its customers all too well, the tastes, special
occasions such as birthdays, favorite restaurants, and close
friends. By using this information, Zomato can create some
special experiences for its customers to improve the customer
engagement. It can contact customer Xs favorite restaurant and
ask them to offer a special treat for X (a small discount of 10%
will also do, and give Xs friends a notification about the special
occasion). This will increase customer engagement and retention,
improve brand image and enhance loyalty to Zomato and that
restaurant.
These are some ideas which came to my mind when I visited their
app few days back. Constant innovation is the only way to survive
19

in this competitive industry and keeping Zomatos vision and

mission in sight, its much more than important. It is a
prerequisite.

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Zomato uses different platforms to engage their customers with
them.

Facebook :
There is a huge engagement of customers on Facebook. Zomato
has more than 600k strong Facebook community.

Twitter :
Twitter is a place where Zomato is sparkling. It has more than 114
k followers there. Used as a conversation platform with the
customers, Zomato is doing a great job in engaging their
customers on their page. They answers all the queries raised over
the platform by the customers.
Blog :
Sharing and updating with all the latest updates is a key point for
any organization. Zomato uses their blog as their mouthpiece to
share all the latest updates.
Pinterest :
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The platform shares the food experience with great content to

attract their customers. The company needs to do a lot of job to
make its followers on this platform which will certainly work in
their promotion.

Instagram :
This platform lets the user share the foodie photographs just by
sharing it using the tag #Zomato. The image automatically gets
shared on the microsite.

SUCCESS STORY
The key factor for Zomato success is its marketing strategy and
in-depth knowledge of their competitors. Zomato aims to be a
place where the foodies hangout. The company has spread in 20
countries with its headquarter in New Delhi, India providing
service to over 35 million values customers per month. The list of
registered restaurants on the website has increased to 384,100 till
March 2015.
Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are the 3 main platforms which
made the base for the success of Zomato with a deep presence
among their customers. Other than that, Zomato has extensively
invested a lot over SMOs, SEOs and has worked a lot to improve
its UI and make it more user interactive. Side by side with a goal
to branch globally, they also invest much on TV ads to bombinate
Zomato.
Pankaj Chaddah, the co-founder of Zomato agreed, ads on the
mobile app have changed the revenue game for them. More than
50% of their total traffic comes from their mobile apps.
21

Using location-based services to target ads around a consumers

physical location helps make this decision easier said Chaddah.
Sanjeev Bikchandani, co-founder of Info Edge and Zomatos
largest shareholder said, the firm will focus on segments such as
online food ordering, restaurant booking, subscription-based
services and billing inside of restaurants.

The Strategy :
Rao pinned down three major factors that would make the
campaign a success: in-house PR, community engagement and
the right timing. Zomato believed its staff could talk most
passionately about the brand. This is why Rao kept the PR in
house. He explains: We wanted to do our marketing efforts
internally because we personally wanted to build relationships
with the media over time. If you change from one agency to
another, you lose that contact. Its about taking a friendly
approach when it comes to PR. It was definitely cheaper to do it
ourselves as well. Simultaneously, Zomato built a social media
community. It reached out to bloggers every week, collecting
valuable feedback and improving the product. As most of the
marketing was done in house, it was also important to get a taste
for the medias opinion. Six months in, Zomato had been cooking
up ideas with the online community side-by-side. At this point,
half a million users were coming onto its website every month.
22

Zomatos recipe was going to plan. Now it was time to launch its
campaign to increase brand visibility. We had a good momentum
going, so all we needed was that push to make the next stage a
success. We felt the timing was right. The feedback had been
integrated, our product was very good and we had a strong user
base. We wanted to take it to the next level, which meant more
people should know about Zomato, Rao says. In order to reach
the greatest number of hungry commuters, timing was very
important. Rao explains: We could have run he campaign in July,
but many people would have been on holiday so we decided to
wait until September. Zomatos campaign resembled a tightly
run kitchen, with Rao as its head chef, knowing exactly what
results hed like to see served up. We wanted a three-fold
increase in website traffic, but we also focused on mobile apps.
We werent looking at a three-fold increase, but were hoping to
have the amount of downloads doubled.

The Execution :
The next step was to take a closer look at its users. We noticed
that in London at least 95 per cent of our users take the Tube at
some point. So we considered that would be the best way to
reach out to them. We also saw that 70 per cent of our users are
young professionals who work for corporations. When looking
where to advertise, we selected the City and Canary Wharf
because they were Zomatos most popular subzones, Rao
explains.
The 500,000 campaign also enticed people by advertising its
tasty wares through other mediums. From the total budget, a
significant amount went on Tube advertising. But we also decided
to advertise in print. So we ranads with The Evening Standard,
City AM, The Wharf and outer-London trade publications, he says.
For the companys online campaign, Zomato used a display ad
platform and behavioural targeting to get its message out. From
the categories that we selected, we focused primarily on food
blogs and online communities. We also targeted people whose
online behaviour showed an interest in food and e-commerce
23

websites. While food websites ensured relevance, the ecommerce sites were added so that we could target people who
have a certain disposable income and can afford eating out.
But the heat almost got too much in the kitchen, as the team
struggled to decide on its main message. Our initial USP was that
we had lots of rich content. But we also liked the simple message
explaining how we started. Up until the deadline we had several
messages in place. In the end, we decided to forget about
everything and go back to basics, Rao says. To get Zomatos
ravenous followers to share the companys content, a friendly
tone was considered the best way forward. Our social media
strategy never involved too much talking about the product itself.
The posts on social media, especially on Facebook, are more
about showing our humorous side. People prefer to share that
content. Our main intent was for people to link Zomato with
restaurants and food.

The Outcome :
The campaign ran for two and a half weeks, leading to some tasty
results. We saw a five-fold increase in the number of reviews that
were submitted; 70 per cent of those came through the mobile
apps. The numbers were significantly higher than in India, where
we saw a two-fold increase in reviews after our campaign, Rao
says.
The mobile apps proved particularly popular. The apps were
being downloaded much more, which pushed up the rankings and
the amount of people interacting. From a user point of view, that
was the biggest indication that outdoor advertising impacted user
interaction. When youre in the Tube you dont have connectivity,
so to see such an increase is great.
After the campaign, the apps shot through the ranks. The Zomato
iOS app is now placed at number eight in the food and drink
category, having jumped from slot 84 in under two weeks. The
companys web traffic has also increased from 5 per cent to 10per
cent week-on-week. When looking at the complete 10 month
period, Zomato has gone from zero to 20,000 restaurant listings,
700 to over 700,000 unique monthly visits and from zero to
12,000 restaurant reviews.
24

Big food brands have also become more receptive to Zomatos

services. The bigger brands are getting to know about Zomato,
which is a goodsign. Many have been e-mailing us, asking to
update their listings or for a meeting to discuss what more can be
done on Zomato, he says.

The Analysis :
Looking back, Rao would have liked to get more for his money.
This campaign was only focused on brand visibility. But ideally I
would have also done a campaign with a call for action. In some
time we will start to think about doing that.
The challenge Zomato now faces is to maintain the impression it
has made. The main objective of brand visibility weve achieved.
Now the campaign is over, the challenge lies in sustaining our
impact. So were refocusing the campaign to make sure that
happens. Weve visited restaurants and put over 2,000 stickers up
to ensure that the campaign is prolonged over time, Rao says.
For Zomatos next campaign, the company will be going back to
the whiteboard to explore what zero-cost marketing efforts it can
use. Its about PR, putting stickers up in restaurants and getting
more bloggers on board. Were also looking at further expanding
within the UK. So for 2014, our budget will be invested in city
expansion, improving content and doing events related to food.
So expect more results to be served up, coming to a city near
you.

ONLINE FOOD DELIVERY

25

The next food order that you place from your favourite restaurant
online
might be delivered to your doorstep by Zomato itself. The
Gurgaon-based company is planning to foray into last-mile
delivery business. The
company is in the process of finalizing its strategy for the same
and is considering multiple op ions for introducing last-mile
delivery options to its users in the coming months.
"We are working on it and we may do it via an acquisition or
partnership.
Also, we might end up doing it on our own," Deepinder Goyal,
founder
and CEO of Zomato, told TOI. Goyal-led company is known for
being a leading restaurant review platform in the country and it
recently entered into online food-ordering business as the review
space is getting crowded with multiple players, who have
managed to arrange handsome funding from investors. Zomato
has bought strategic minority stakes in hyperlocal delivery
companies in Gurgaon-based Pickingo and Mumbai-based Grab in
order to enable last-mile delivery for restaurants that don't
otherwise deliver. Zomato has also partnered with Gurgaon-based
logistics start up Delivery for last-mile delivery, which will be
launched in five cities to start with.
Rahul Gill Co-Founder of Pickingo share his ideas that these
investments will help them build the company for building
technology operations and will also allow them to scale rapidly
with Zomato's online ordering business.
Zomato is making strides to move from being a search and
discovery portal to a platform offering technology that helps
merchants connect more effectively with customers with the
launch of online ordering, cashless payments, soon to be
launched table reservations, and a point of sale system.
How Will They Do It?
Zomato has now officially announced the opening of online food
delivery on their mobile app; which means that customers can
now save more time. Zomato has now expanded into a domain
26

which very few mobile apps have dared to venture. As of now, the
service would be available only in New Delhi - NCR region, but
soon it would be rolled out across Mumbai, Bangalore and other
cities. iPads will be deployed at the restaurants for online food
delivery.

Zomato would not track or verify the online orders for food; rather
these iPads would be the direct link between Zomato and
restaurant owners for tracking and fulfilling the online orders.
Zomatos focus always had been to provide the best option to the
end customer, and keeping that in mind, they have introduced an
amazing twist into the whole online
delivery funnel: higher the rating of the restaurant, lower is the
commission which would be charged on per order by Zomato.
As per MediaNama report, the restaurants which are 5 starred will
be
charged a commission of 7.5% per processed order, meanwhile
those
restaurants which are 1 starred will be charged 15% commission
on
every order.
Infact, Zomato is so serious about ratings that it has been made
compulsory for the app user: In case the customer forgets to rate
the restaurant, he wont be able to make the next order unless
the previous order is rated.
A big thumbs up for this compulsory rating protocol, as it will
help the consumers to filter out the restaurants which are not
27

delivering on quality. And as the reviews are coming in from

mobile app, directly from the end user, it cannot be tampered
with.
Challenges in Online Food Delivery :
Being in the daily meals market, they have to work with very low
ticket sizes starting at Rs. 50/- with no minimum order
requirements or delivery cost. Considering the costs associated
with food production, packaging and delivery, maintaining a
strong unit margin is the biggest challenge.
A very high competition is already present in the market, who
have set the parameters to be a successful among customers.
E.g:Start-up Operatio Order
Deliver Payme Other
ns In
Placem y Time nt
Features
ent
Mode
Bhojansh Pune
Website 30-50
COD
Daily/Week
ala
mis
ly/
Monthly
Meal
Packages,
Bulk
orders,
Party
orders,
Corporate
orders.
TinyOwl

Mumbai

Faasos

Mumbai,
Pune,
Bangalore,
Chennai,
Ahmedaba
d,
Baroda

Mobile
App
Mobile
App

45 mins Online /
COD
15-45
Online /
mins
Faasos
Wallet

28

 Confusion may happen between the restaurant and Zomato

because of which the end customer will suffer.
Brand Zomato puts its name on stake if anything gone wrong
because of restaurants or the delivery will surely effect its image.

ZOMATO WANTS TO BE THE GOOGLE OF FOOD !

Ramping up globally, the Indian restaurant search
service is going as local as possible in its markets to
improve its brand's stickiness
When Zomato, the India-based restaurant search service,
acquired two of its peers in Czech Republic and Slovakia
(Lunchtime and Obedovat), it quietly increased its presence to 15
countries. It operates in UK, UAE, South Africa, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, Indonesia, Sri Lanka
and Qatar, and over 25 cities across India. But why did it go global
to serve markets as distinct as Sau Paulo, Dubai, Auckland and
Manila?
''We want to be the 'Google' of food. Our vision is to be the global
29

platform when someone is looking for food locally," says Pankaj

Chaddah, co-founder & COO, Zomato, the Rs 31-crore firm backed
by Info Edge (owner of Naukri.com) and Sequoia Capital.
The big markets for restaurants are in the US, Germany, Japan,
Russia, Australia and the UK. The space is dominated by localbusiness search giant Yelp, which is present in 28 such markets.
There are others like JustEat (13 countries) and Open Table (20)
but they are focused on food-ordering and table-bookings,
respectively, and don't aid discovery like Zomato or Yelp.
Zomato has entered markets where these players are not market
leaders. After covering 60,000 restaurants and 12 million monthly
visitors in India, in the next five months, it plans to enter 10 new
markets including Canada, Ireland, Poland, and countries in
Southeast
Asia
and
West
Asia.
For now, it has stayed away from key markets like the US, where
Yelp is the undisputed leader or Germany, where Yelp acquired a
local player, Qype. ''We will need much more bandwidth and
money to go into the US. We have to do at least 50 cities very
quickly to disrupt the player already huge there,'' says Chaddah,
who co-founded Zomato with fellow IITian Deepinder Goyal.
BECOMING A DISCOVERY CHANNEL
ONLINE

30

Provides restaurant information

on-the-go for diners. Began in
2008 as Foodiebay.com with 1,200
restaurants in NCR Delhi, before
expanding. In 2010, rebranded as
Zomato, an easy-to-remember
name, reminiscent of food (rhymes
with tomato). Dedicated teams
collect menus and upload photo of
restaurants.

Sanjeev Bhikchandani, founder of

Naukri.com and chairman of Info
Edge, came across Foodiebay in
2010, and invested in it. Zomato
has raised $53.5 million in five
rounds of funding, with Sequoia
Capital and Info Edge infusing $37
million in the last round in 2013.

Its revenues have grown from Rs

2.04 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 31
crore in 2013-14.

CRACKING THE UK MARKET

The UK is one market where it has faced global competition. UK
has Yelp, Open Table, JustEat and TimeOut. With 23,000
restaurants, Yelp has become one of the biggest players in the
UK; the next player, Trip Advisor, has 14,000 restaurants and only
user-generated content. When Zomato entered, it found that that
a lot of diners kept going to the same place every time, as they
could not figure out which were the other good places. Zomato
felt consumers in the UK needed a curated list. So, it came up
with collections - the best places for taking your kids or pets, or
for cocktails, Carribean food, breakfast or barbeque. The
segmentation worked. In the UK, people are used to tablebookings; so it tied up with Open Table, ResDiary, and Bookatable.
''We are the discovery layer and they are the transaction layer,''
says Chaddah. Zomato aids restaurant discovery, the merchant
31

pays Open Table for a booking, which shares a part with Zomato.
As in other markets, it worked with bloggers to bring in early
adopters. It advertised heavily on the Tube and made sure the
right lifestyle publications spoke of it. Luckily, Yelp did not respond
in the UK. A spokesman Yelp says, ''We maintain our focus on
developing the Yelp brand and community and ways for
consumers to interact with local businesses. The arrival of other
potential competitors does not detract from our focus. ''
Zomato's international foray began in the UAE in 2012, as it was
culturally the closest to India. Localisation helped there too, as it
detailed places serving shishas and Iftar during Ramadan.
HOME MARKET
Launched in India in 2008, Zomato had no early-mover
advantage. There were players like burp.com, dineout.com,
placetodine.com. Chaddah says content worked: "No one had the
quality, the menus; no one had a product which was as good as
ours, where you could discover the menu". He says it is not easy
to replicate: ''If it was so, Just Dial or Google would have done it
two years back".
A user and fellow online entrepreneur, Ambareesh Murthy, CEO of
Pepperfry.com, says, ''What I like about them is that they also put
out the delivery menu.'' ''It has done well in aiding discovery of
restaurants. But I am not sure if it is spreading too thin,'' says a
senior executive with a rival portal.
AD INCOME
"Given that our biz model is hyper-local, restaurants and
businesses can display ads to hungry consumers looking for
options in a specific area," says Chaddah. Globally, over 3,500
restaurants advertise on Zomato and online ads form a sizeable
part of its revenues.
Zomato would now look to sit at the big boys' table with its rapid
expansion.

32

IN NEWS
1. Net Neutrality: TRAI order gives start-ups premium
relief - February 09, 2016, Tuesday
Smaller start-ups feared they might have to pay premium if
differential pricing was allowed by the telecom regulator
E-commerce players have been batting for net neutrality
because smaller start-ups cannot afford the expenses
required to push their services via faster internet
something that differential pricing would have introduced.
Major e-commerce players such as Zomato, Paytm and
Snapdeal had opposed differential pricing as they were
apprehensive their businesses would be affected. Their fear
was that companies with tie-ups with certain telecom
operators would be given preference, hurting others. Last
month, employees of nearly 700 start-ups, including Zomato,
Cleartrip and Paytm, had petitioned Prime Minister Narendra
Modi to defend net neutrality, which they defined as access
to content on the internet without any discrimination. "We
urge you to ensure that the recently announced initiative,
33

Start-Up India, address the concern of net neutrality, with

clearly defined policies and firm rules," the letter said.
2. Zomato breaks even in 6 markets, to raise $200 mn February 08, 2016, Monday
China's Baidu could be a lead investor in company's fresh
funding round; Zomato aims for operational profit this year
Beating the other food technology companies on the road to
profitability, online restaurant search, rating and foodordering firm Zomato has operationally broken even in India,
as well as five other markets - the UAE, Lebanon and Qatar
in West Asia; and the Philippines and Indonesia in Southeast
Asia.
According to sources, the food start-up, which has attained
the coveted title of a 'unicorn' - a company with a valuation
of more than $1 billion - plans to raise as much as $200
million in April from its old and new sets of investors. China's
web services giant Baidu could be a lead investor in
Zomato's fresh funding round, sources say. If it does invest,
this will be Baidu's first investment in India.
3. Why CSR makes sense for start-ups - January 28,
2016, Thursday
A report by CRISIL says smaller firms spent more on CSR
than many large cap companies
Start-ups have started to wake up to the concept of
corporate social responsibility (CSR) recently and the
marketing potential it brings. CSR is usually mandated on
listed companies but some start-ups are doing it on their
own. A report released by CRISIL said that smaller firms
spent more on CSR than many large cap companies. While
34

the spends cant be compared, experts said the need for CSR
made sense for start-ups as well.
As Chennai battled the floods, Ola had boats in action to help
people get from one end of the city to another. The subtle
take on the state of infrastructure aside, it made for a decent
feel good story. At the same time, start-ups were endearing
themselves to the people of Chennai and the rest of the
country.
Zomato donated food, Paytm and others offered free mobile
phone recharges. At a time of natural disaster, help poured
in. But for several of these companies, it wasnt an isolated
call to action.
4. China's Baidu eyes Indian ecommerce start-ups January 13, 2016, Wednesday
It is in talks to invest in start-ups including Zomato,
BookMyShow and BigBasket
Baidu Inc is in talks to invest in Indian ecommerce start-ups
including Zomato, BookMyShow and BigBasket, a spokesman
for China's top online search provider said on Wednesday.
"The Indian market represents an enormous opportunity for
us to connect more people with services, and we plan to put
more resources there in the future," the spokesman said in
an email.
Zomato is India's leading restaurant search provider,
BookMyShow is the country's top online seller of movies and
events tickets while BigBasket is an online grocer.
Zomato is not actively looking to raise funds right now but
has been "in touch with Baidu to explore synergies and
35

alignment", a Zomato spokeswoman said in a statement to

Reuters.
5. Zomato shuts operations in 4 cities - January 12,
2016, Tuesday
Exits Lucknow, Kochi, Indore and Coimbatore markets
Barely a week after hyperlocal grocery delivery app Grofers
had shut operations in nine cities, Gurgaon-based restaurant
discovery and food ordering app Zomato said on Monday it
was closing down its online ordering service in Lucknow,
Kochi, Indore, and Coimbatore.
Pankaj Chaddah, co-founder of Zomato, who is leading the
online ordering business for Zomato, said: The size of the
market in these cities is small right now and is growing with
time. We will re-launch when the time is right.
The company said the combined order volume in these four
cities accounted for two per cent of Zomato's total order
volumes. It, though, said the firms online order volume was
growing at 40 per cent month-on-month. Less than five per
cent of Zomato's orders are discounted, making Zomato one
of the few tech start-ups not using negative gross margins to
grow business. The firm, founded in 2008, has secured
$225 mn in funding so far.
Last year, Zomato was in the news for reportedly dismissing 250300 employees. Subsequently, co-founder and chief executive
Deepinder Goyal had sent out an e-mail to the company's sales
team on the hard reality of the company's growth. The mail had
said Zomato was far behind the numbers it promised to its
investors for the year ending March 2016.

36

CONCLUSION
Zomato, an online restaurant discovery platform where customers
can find restaurants in a particular area, their menu, place order
and pay online. Delivery part is taken care by the restaurants.
Moreover, customers can give their review about the restaurants
and the quality of food which help the restaurants and other
customers to have a better experience. Internet and mobile app
are the only channel used for the whole process for customers to
find a suitable restaurant with better discount deals and place an
order. First restaurants review than placing order now Zomato
wants to start delivering the ordered food to customers doorstep
by their own, which was earlier taken care by the restaurants only.
In an interview with Times of India, Deepinder Goyal, founder and
CEO of Zomato said We are working on it and we may do it via
an acquisition or partnership. Also, we might end up doing it on
our own".
Zomato, entering lastmile delivery could turn out to be a positive
move as India is already a profitable market for the seven-yearold company valued at over $1 bn. Once finalized, the service
would be extended to other countries in a phased manner.

37