Zomato Food Delivery | Zomato Startup Wiki.

Zomato is an Indian online food ordering and delivery company and provides information, restaurant menu, and user reviews of particular restaurants. It delivers food from partner restaurants in selected cities.

History-

Zomato was founded as foodiebay in 2008 by Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal. It’s renamed Zomato on 18 Jan 2010 as Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd. In 2011, Zomato started the expansion of their businesses across India in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, and Kolkata.
In 2012, Zomato served internationally in several countries including Sri Lanka, Qatar, UAE, UK, Philippines, and South Africa, and over the next 3-4 years they continuously expanded their services in different regions. In 2013, it was launched in New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia with Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and English language compatibility in Zomato mobile app.

In 2019, Zomato acquires Seattle-based food Portal Urban spoon, which led to Zomato’s entry into the United States and Australia. It’s also launched Zomato.xxx site, which was delicates to food porn. In Feb 2017, Zomato Launched the Zomato Infrastructure Service, it’s helped the restaurants expand their presence without incurring any fixed costs. That’s why in the financial year 2017 Zomato Company turned into profit-making in all 24 countries. The Zomato also worked on the zero-commission model for their partner restaurants.

In 2019, Zomato fired almost 10% of its staff (540 people) tending to back-end activities like Customer care, merchant, and delivery partner support functions. In April 2020, Zomato Launched its grocery delivery service due to the rising demand for online groceries amid of Covid-19 lockdown. The Zomato market started in 80 plus cities across the country and Also introduced contactless Dinning to get ready for a post lockdown. This initiative minimizes customer contact with high-touch elements such as the menu, ordering, and bill payments. All this process was done online using the Zomato mobile app.

Zomato laid off 520 employees due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the 2020 year. In Aug 2020, they drew praise for introducing a period leave policy for women employees. It allows the female employees to take up to 10 Day leave per year if they are unable to work due to the menstrual cycle. This policy also applies to transgender employees as well.

Zomato Investment-

From 2010 to 2013, Zomato raised approximately US $ 16.7 million from Info edge India. It holds a 57.9% stake in Zomato. In Nov 2013, it raised US $ 37 million from sequoia capital and Info Edge India.

In 2019, Zomato completed another round of funding of US $ 60 million this funding was being laid by Info Edge India and VY capital with participation from sequoia capital.

In Oct 2018, Zomato raised $ 210 million from Alibaba payment affiliate ant financial and it had also raised an additional $ 150 million from Ant Financial in earlier 2018.

In Oct 2020, as a part of a series J round of funding, Zomato raised $ 52 million from Kora, Its US-based investment firm. It also raised US $ 250 million from five investors including Tiger Global management at valuations of US $ 5.4 billion in Feb 2021.

Acquisitions-

Zomato has acquired 12 startups globally.

• In July 2014, Zomato acquired the Manu Mania.
• Zomato took over lunchtime. CZ and obedovat. SK for a combined US $ 3.25 million.
• In September 2014, it acquired Poland-based restaurant search service Gastronauci.
• In Dec 2014, Zomato acquired the Italian restaurant search service industry in Sibanda.
• In 2015, Zomato also acquired settled-based food Portal Urban spoon for an estimated $ 60 million.
• Mekanist in an all-cash deal, Delhi-based start-up MapleGraph built MaplePoS and Nextable, a US-based table reservation and restaurants management platform these all platforms acquired Zomato in 2015.
• In 2016, Zomato acquired sparse labs, a logistics technology startup, and a food delivery startup, the runner in 2017.
• In Step 2018, it acquired Bangalore-based food e-marketplace, Tonguestun food for about $18 million in stock and cash.
• In Dec 2018, Zomato acquired the Lucknow-based startup Tech Eagle Innovative that works on drone delivery in India.
• In Jan 2020, it acquired its opponents UberEats Businesses in India with all stock deals and given Uber eat 10% of the combined Business.

Zomato Security Breaches-

On 4 June 2015, an Indian security researcher hacked the Zomato website and accessed the information of 63.5 million users. He was able to access the personal data of users such as telephone numbers, email addresses, Instagram photos using their access token. Later Zomato fixed the issue within 48 hours of it happening.
On 18 May 2017, another hack happened with Zomato, it’s security blog called hack read claimed that 17 million accounts had been hacked.

The database includes emails and passwords of Zomato users and the price of the whole database is $1001.43 (Bitcoin 0.5557). Hacked claim details of 17 million user data sold on the dark web. After this incident, Zomato said to all customers who used the old same password on the other services to change them. It affects the user log, so users log out of the app and reset their password to log in again. It looks like an internal security issue. After this incident, Zomato knows about the loophole in their security. Zomato resolved and improve the security resources.

Zomato Controversy-

“Food Has No Religion” Tweet.

In July 2019, Zomato received a complaint from a customer in Jabalpur. The customer said to Zomato ‘he was assigned a non-Hindu delivery boy for his food order and also he added to provide a Hindu delivery boy. Then the customer stated Zomato had refused to change the delivery agent. The customer posted this all incident on Twitter, after that Zomato responded with the message: Food Doesn’t Have a Religion, It is a Religion. The Zomato received huge response comments on Twitter. Also, some customers have a query regarding Jain Food, and Halal Tag on food, they commented on it, according to the company such tag or food are served by individual restaurants, not by Zomato

Logout Campaign-

The logout campaign started on 17 Aug 2019 in Zomato and during this campaign, more than 1200 restaurants logged off from Zomato. In Pune single city, more than 450 restaurants stop their services to Zomato because of aggressive discounts on food, and losses are increased in business. As a part of the campaign around 2500 restaurants logged off from the Zomato gold membership program.

After this incident, Zomato made some changes but the National Restaurant Association of India still rejected all modification versions of plans and stated these corrective factors were not capable of resolving the key issues of discount. Then the Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal admitted his mistake and was ready to rectify it. He also urged the restaurants to stop the logged-off campaign.

Bangalore Women and Delivery Agent dispute-

On 9 March 2021, the Zomato delivery boy assaulted the woman Hitesha, a makeup artist and influencer from Bangalore. She posted a video claiming that a Zomato delivery agent, Kamran, hit her and ran away due to an altercation over a delay in the delivery of food. The Zomato delivery boy Kamraj was arrested by Bangalore police, Electronic City police investigating the case. Kamraj also filed an FIR against her. After the investigation, city police stop the case investigation temporarily due to lack of evidence.

Zomato IPO Details-

Zomato IPO is going to hit the market on 26 July 2021 with a fixed price band at Rs 72- 76 per equity share. The company offers Rs 9375 Cr shares open for subscription on 14 July and close on July 16. The public offering comprises dress issues of Rs 9000 Cr share and offers for sales of Rs 375 Cr by existing selling shareholders info edge. Also, Zomato reserved 65 lakh equity shares for their employees. Zomato IPO is India’s second-largest IPO after the SBI card of Rs 10355 cr that was launched in March 2020.

IPO News-

Zomato has filed for an IPO ( Initial Public Offering ) of up to Rs. 8250 Cr. ( 1.11 Billion ). As per the DRHP filed by Zomato, the company offers equity shares up to Rs 8250 Cr of this 7500 Cr ( 1 billion ) will be through a fresh issue of equity shares. The rest amounting to Rs. 750 Cr will be raised through an OFS ( Offer For Sale ) by existing investors Info Edge.

Zomato raised $ 250 MN from pre-IPO primary fundraise a couple of months ago at a $ 5.4 billion valuation from investors such as Kora Management, Tiger Global, Fidelity, Dragoneer, and Bow wave. Info Edge said its effective stake in Zomato is now 18.4%. Zomato IPO will be launched in the upcoming weeks.
SEBI, The Security and Exchange Board of India has approved the IPO application of Zomato. The company is backed by an ant group from China. Zomato filed for the IPO in April and looking to raise to 1.2 billion dollars and SEBI gives official approval for IPO on 28 June 2021.

Updates-

• Zomato IPO listed on July 23 as a Stock market open at Rs 116 on NSE, a 53% premium against the final offer price of Rs 76. The listing price on BSE was Rs 115 at a 64.87 premium. The stock closed at Rs 125.85, up 65%  against the share issue prices of Rs 76 (money control).
• Zomato share price may fall 9%, JP Morgan initiates with an underweight rating, and given a target price of Rs 112 per share, implying a 9% downside from the current price (financial express)

• Zomato to take on board EY dealmaker Nitin Savara may get a senior finance role, With over 20 years of experience, Savara, a chartered accountant and a lawyer specialises in transaction tax and structuring.

• Zomato and Swiggy will be liable to collect GST on online orders of food, instead of restaurants.

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