Walk down memory lane: Zomato's evolution from Foodiebay to one of India's top 50 companies by market cap

Zomato exceeded all expectations on day one with a 66 percent rise in share price and a market capitalisation of little more than Rs 98,000 crore ($13 billion approximately).

Sindhu Kashyaap

Rashi Varshney

Tenzin Pema

Saturday July 24, 2021 , 7 min Read

On July 23, Zomato became the first unicorn in India to go public.

Unlike a typical listing ceremony, Zomato's bell-ringing ceremony was a low-key affair, and the opening bell was rung by the company's 'riders' digitally, a Zomato spokesperson told YourStory.

The company has a total of 169,802 active delivery partners, according to its prospectus.

Zomato offered shares with a face value of Re 1 in a price band of Rs 72-76 apiece. The IPO, which opened on July 14 and closed on July 16, was oversubscribed by over 38 times.

On Friday, Zomato opened at Rs 116 per share on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and rose rapidly to a level of Rs 138, before closing at Rs 125. It saw a 66 percent rise in share price and a market capitalisation of little more than Rs 98,000 crore ($13 billion approximately).

This makes Zomato one of India's top 50 companies by market capitalisation, and as of Friday's closing price, it was more valuable than 76-year-old automotive major Tata Motors.

The company, which was founded in 2008 as Foodiebay, a food listing platform, has come a long way since Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chhadah began working on this idea in 2008, while they were at Bain Consulting.

By 2011, just three years after it was founded, Zomato became the go-to place for restaurant search and discovery. In the years since, it has been extensively expanding its operations, foraying into new categories, markets, and launching new services and offerings to emerge as one of the category leaders in the space.

In the past two years, the company has elevated Gaurav Gupta, its food delivery division head Mohit Gupta, and its Chief People Officer Akriti Chopra as co-founders along with CTO Gunjan Patidar and CEO Deepinder Goyal, who continue to scale the business after Pankaj moved on from Zomato in 2018.

We take a walk down memory lane to highlight some key milestones in the company’s journey so far.

Zomato Revenue — Deepinder Goyal and Gaurav Gupta

2008: Launch of food listing platform, Foodiebay

A glimpse from YourStory’s first coverage of Zomato from 2008: “When they (Deepinder and Pankaj) were in college and moved on to become executives in Bain Consulting, it was always a struggle to find menus of restaurants around. They had to either head to the restaurants directly or ask friends for the menu so that they could order food. This need formed the genesis of the idea to start Foodiebay, where they could make the menus of restaurants available online."

But the ride has not been easy for Deepinder and Pankaj. Deepinder started "foodlet.com" some time ago. The venture was to have tie-ups with restaurants and put up their promotions through Foodlet.com, while customers can order food online through the platform. Deepinder now wants to focus first on making Foodiebay, his current passion, a huge success and then evolving the features of Foodlet into it.”

Full YourStory article from 2008 here

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2010

Foodiebay rebrands itself as Zomato; the duo focus on it full time; Co-founder and CTO Gunjan Patidar joins the company

YourStory’s coverage from 2010: Foodiebay.com, an online food guide and restaurant directory, has rebranded itself as Zomato.com. According to the company, Zomato is derived from the word ‘tomato’ and has a zing to it which adds to the brand recall. The rebranding was aimed at helping the company expand its areas of operations beyond food and restaurant listings and enter the nightlife listing business.

Deepinder Goyal said, “We saw that if we wanted to touch broader horizons then the name Foodiebay wouldn’t be the best choice as it constraints our perception to one of a food website. Another thought at the back of our minds was to prevent any overstepping of eBay when we start accepting online payments. So, we decided to keep the idea of food at the centre but choose a name that is timeless and encompassing – Zomato.”

Vivek Khare, senior vice president, corporate development, Info Edge India, added, “The new name is more marketable and should open new horizons to expand to. I am sure the team has a long way to go and Zomato will carry the success of Foodiebay to the next level.”

Full YourStory article from 2010 here

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[Techie Tuesday] Gunjan Patidar began as an intern and went on to build Zomato's core systems

2011

Zomato became the go-to place for restaurant search and discovery. Also in the same year, it launched event ticketing but shelved it soon after; expanded to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata. Full story here

2012

Built the first Android and iOS app; Zomato went international, expanded into UAE, Sri Lanka, Qatar, UK, Philippines, and South Africa in 2012. Full story here

2013

Raised $16.7 million from InfoEdge. Full story here

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8 months on, how is Zomato doing internationally?

2013

Raised $37 million from Sequoia Capital and InfoEdge; also expanded to New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia . Full story here

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Zomato acquires New Zealand's restaurant discovery service, Menumania

2014

Zomato aquired Menu-mania for an undisclosed sum.

Acquired Poland-based restaurant search service Gastronauci for an undisclosed sum and Italian restaurant search service Cibando.

Raised $60 million at a post-money valuation of $660 million.

2015

Launched food delivery. Faced its first major roadblock: a data breach, which the team resolved in 12 hours. Raises $50 million and $60 million in two rounds in the same year.

Zomato also acquired Seattle-based food portal, Urbanspoon, for an estimated $60 million. Other acquisitions in the same year include MapleGraph, renamed as Zomato Base, NexTable, a US-based table reservation and restaurant management platform.

2016

Acquisition spree continued: acquired Sparse Labs, a logistics technology startup. Full story here

2017

Launched Zomato Infrastructure services, a service to help restaurants; also acquired Runnr. Full story here

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Zomato Co-founder Pankaj Chaddah calls it a day

2018

Became a unicorn; raised $180 million and later $210 million from Alibaba’s Ant Financial, valued at $2 billion; acquired TongueStun for $18 million; entered the B2B space by acquiring WOTU and rebranding it as Hyperpure. Co-founder Pankaj Chaddah exited the company.

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Alibaba's Ant Financial pumps $200 million into Zomato, takes valuation to $1.1 billion

2019

Elevated Gaurav Gupta to co-founder role. Full story here

2020

Acquired UberEats business in India in an all-stock deal, giving Uber Eats 10 percent of the combined business. Raised $62 million from Temasek; Zomato raised $52 million from Kora, a US-based investment firm. Launched grocery business, Zomato Market. Elevated Mohit Gupta to co-founder role.

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Early backers Info Edge, Sequoia to make big returns on Zomato IPO

2021

Zomato raised $250 million; signed a deal with Grofers to invest nearly $100 million in the online grocery firm by acquiring 9.3 percent stakes of the company. Elevated Akriti Chopra to co-founder role.

July 2021: Zomato's IPO launch. The Zomato IPO was open for subscription between July 14 and 16, and the shares were priced in the range of Rs 72-76. The IPO received very strong subscription from qualified institutional investors, non-institutional investors, and retail investors with each category being subscribed multiple times.

July 2021: On July 23, Zomato opened at Rs 116 per share on NSE and rose rapidly to a level of Rs 138, before closing at Rs 125. The foodtech giant exceeded all expectations on day one with a 66 percent rise in share price and a market capitalisation of little more than Rs 98,000 crore ($13 billion approximately).

This makes Zomato one of India's top 50 companies by market capitalisation, and as of Friday's closing price, it was more valuable than 76-year-old automotive major Tata Motors.