Zomato appoints former exec Shalin Bhatt as dining out head

Zomato has appointed its former head of growth, Shalin Bhatt, as head of its dining-out business, as the foodtech giant looks to strengthen the segment amid moderation in food delivery.

Bhatt's appointment, as confirmed by the company, was first reported by Economic Times.

Bhatt spent three years at Zomato, from 2028 to 2021, departing as the company's head of growth and leading the platform's overall growth marketing stack, as per Bhatt's LinkedIn profile.

After his stint with Zomato, he spent two years working on his own startup in the SaaS ecommerce space, followed by a short stint at Moloco, which offers programmatic advertising solutions.

Bhatt, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad, worked at Matrix Partners India before his first stint with Zomato.

Bhatt will replace Sankalp Kathuri, who finished his six-year-long stint with Zomato last month, departing as the company's Business Head, Zomato Dining and SVP.

The appointment comes as Zomato looks to focus on its newly-launched going-out app, District.

These offerings are counted under its Going-out vertical which reports separate results along with food delivery, quick commerce and B2B arm Hyperpure.

In July last year, Zomato called back two senior executives, Rahul Ganjoo and Pradyot Ghate, to revamp the segment. A month later, it acquired Paytm’s events and ticketing business for Rs 2,048 crore.

According to Zomato's latest quarterly earnings released last week, the District app has crossed 6.5 million downloads. Its going-out segment posted an adjusted EBITDA loss of Rs 17 crore, mostly due to the costs associated with marketing and technology costs for the District app.