Zomato is a Gurugram-based food delivery and ordering platform that allows users to order meals from restaurants and get them delivered at their door-steps. Recently, the start-up has announced to have been in advanced talks to raise USD 250 million in funding from existing and new investors ahead of its Initial Public Offer planned for June this year.
It is now well known that a few months back, Zomato was on a fundraising spree and with its latest infusion of funds from Kora Management LP, the lead investor in the round that infused close to USD 115 million. As mentioned in a report by Deal Street Asia and according to the company profile on Crunchbase, existing investors such as Tiger Global Management infused a sum of USD 50 million and Fidelity Management and Research has put in USD 55 million into Zomato’s financing round.
The report also mentions that new investors were added to the list of Zomato’s investors; Bow Wave Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group are known to have infused a total sum of USD 30 million into the company’s funding round. USD 20 million were infused by Bow Wave Capita and USD 10 million were added by Dragoneer Investment Group.
Food Delivery has been under the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic where the business was declared as an essential service and was operational the entire time, but the sales were hugely impacted because people were threatened by the exposure to the deadly virus. The peak months of the COVID-19 induced lockdowns were the darkest for the company’s sales but slowly as the lockdowns were lifted, things started going back to normal and today, the sales ae as good as the pre-COVID-19 period.
According to several reports, December 2020 was Zomato’s highest ever recorded Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) month in the history of the company since its inception. Founded back in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah and Gaurav Gupta, Zomato’s existing and earliest investor, Info Edge has recorded an 18.4% stake in the company.
It is also speculated as mentioned by several sources that the second round of funding will serve as a partial exit for Zomato’s Chinese investors, Alibaba’s Ant Group and Sunlight Fund, according to a report by Deal Street Asia.
Zomato has also been b=in the highlight because of its acquisition spree as the company has recently acquired FITSO, a mobile-based fitness application. This acquisition concluded in January 2021 in a deal worth USD 1 billion.
