Generally, Indian startups establish themselves and then earn a hefty amount after selling their whole resources. Flipkart is one such example that is under WallMart now. But wait, all startups are not the same. Some of them do the opposite. They build their empire by acquiring other startups. Byju’s, Unacademy, and Zomato are some of the Indian startups that have become a known firm by acquiring plenty of startups.
Today, we are going to discuss Zomato, the online food delivery giant in India. The startup has more than 50% share in the online food delivery system of India. The firm has acquired 14 startups globally to establish itself as the online food delivery king.
Details of Initial Acquired Firms by Zomato
Zomato is on an acquisition spree since its establishment in 2008. Acquisition king is the other name given to Zomato due to the recent records. Given below are the firms acquired by Zomato:
MenuMania
MenuMania, the restaurant information portal from New Zealand, is the first startup bought by Zomato in July 2014. Both the parties did not reveal the financial details yet. The main objective of the MenuMania acquisition was to establish Zomato in New Zealand as the largest restaurant information provider.
Gastronauci
Within two months of MenuMania acquisition, Zomato acquired another firm named Gastronauci, an eatery finder in Poland. It is active since 2007 in Poland. From 2014 onwards, it started working together with Zomato.
Cibando
Cibando, the third acquisition in 2014, established Zomato operations in Italy. The Indian food giant invested around $6 million in Italy region to start its operations.
UrbanSpoon
Zomato continued its acquiring business in 2015 as well. UrbanSpoon, the Seattle food portal, was the first company bought by Zomato in 2015. As per an insider report, the deal was closed with a hefty amount of $50 million. This startup helped Zomato to start its operations in the US.
In 2014, the online food firm acquired LunchTime and Obedovat to establish itself in Europe. LunchTime was a food tech firm in the Czech Republic, whereas Obedovat is a Slovakia based food tech startup. Mekanist(Turkey) and Nextable(USA) are the other two acquisitions done by Zomato in 2015.
Zomato Changed the Gear to Acquire more Tech-Based Food Startup
Given below are the major tech-based acquisitions in the online food industry by Zomato:
MapleGraph
MapleGraph, a Delhi based startup, used to provide cloud-based point sale product for restaurants. MapleOS was the name of its cloud-based product. In 2015, Zomato acquired it and changed the product name to Zomato Base.
Sparse Labs
Zomato targeted Sparse Labs to make its delivery experience better. This product helped Zomato to know what the firm is lacking in delivery. The startup came closer to the consumers through Sparse Labs. This acquisition took place in 2016.
TechEagle Innovations
In 2018, TechEagle was another major acquisition by Zomato to start drone-based food delivery in India and abroad. The financial details of the deal are not yet disclosed in the public domain. Later in 2020, Zomato cancelled the acquisition deal with TechEagle.
Along with these three, start-up, Runnr(2017) and TongueStun(2018) were other two tech-based acquisitions by Zomato to provide advanced services. these firms also helped Zomato in becoming a tech-savvy online food delivery giant.
Fitso(2021) and UberEats(2020) is the latest acquisition completed by Zomato. Recently, UberEats existed from India and Zomato became the Online food delivery leader. The startup is also on the way to start its initial public offering(IPO) soon. It has already filed the documents to Sebi for IPO approval worth $1.1 billion.
