Restaurant reviews and listings service provider Zomato Media has raised $37 million (Rs 227.6 crore) in a growth round of funding led by Sequoia Capital. Existing investor Info Edge has also participated in the round. Out of the total investment in the current round, Info Edge has invested $9.1 million (Rs 57 crore) while the balance has been invested by Sequoia, the Delhi-based Info Edge has disclosed in a BSE filing. Following the fresh funding round, Info Edge’s stake in the company has been pared from 57.9 per cent to 50.1 per cent.
The Gurgaon-headquartered Zomato, founded in 2008 by IIT Delhi alumni Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, has raised more than $53 million in venture capital till date, including the current funding round. It had earlier raised $16.5 million from Info Edge over four rounds of funding. The last round was in February when it raised a $10 million Series D round.
“This is an exciting phase for us. We believe that we can disrupt restaurant search with our rich content-driven model. This financing will help us develop a product that will change the way people look for restaurant recommendations around them,” Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a press release today.
The funding coincides with the launch of Zomato’s services in three new countries — Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia. The company has also expanded its services within the United Kingdom from three cities to five, with the inclusion of Glasgow and Edinburgh. It now has a presence in 35 cities across 11 countries and plans to expand to 22 more countries across Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and the Americas over the next two years.
The company claims to receive over 15 million visits across its web and mobile platform every month. It also claims that monthly billings are currently growing at 500 per cent and that the India and UAE operations have broken even at the EBITDA level. It currently employs 600 people.
Earlier posts from StartupCentral on what’s been happening at Zomato in the past several months:
