26 September 2016, India :
Zomato has acquired a logistics technology startup Sparse Labs- specializing in helping restaurants track delivery drivers, allocate orders to the most suitable delivery person based on location and show customers where their order is in real time reported in a blog post.
Deepinder Goyal Founder, CEO of Zomato said, “Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re taking a big leap forward in bolstering our delivery-tech capabilities with the acquisition of Sparse Labs, a logistics-tech startup that helps restaurants track and optimise their in-house delivery fleet.”
Goyal further added, “Joining forces with Sparse Labs will allow us to significantly improve the food ordering experience on the app, by giving users real-time GPS-based status updates on their order. While we were already working on making this feature available for deliveries handled by our logistics partners, Sparse Labs will now help us enable delivery tracking for restaurant-owned fleets as well.”
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.
Zomato’s core content features include menus, photos and geocoded coordinates for restaurants. Other community features include reviews, ratings and the ability to follow other users’ recommendations on Zomato.
Sparse Labs will be renamed as Zomato Trace. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.