Last Updated on Dec 17, 2021 by Aradhana Gotur
Chole bhature, Biryani, Dal Makhni, Schezwan momos, Dosa, Butter Chicken. Sounds delicious, right? And where can you get all of these? On Zomato! Read 10 interesting facts about this popular company.
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Fact No. 1: Started as a food directory
Around 2008, people in Delhi were fed up with manual searching of delivery menus of different restaurants around them. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, the founders of Zomato made the most of this opportunity by launching a food directory service. They called it FoodieBay. In just 9 mthm, it became the largest and a popular restaurant directory in all of Delhi.
Fact No. 2: Rebranding of FoodieBay
We always hear ‘Naam mai kya rakha hai”, but for startups and brands, it becomes very important to have a quick, catchy name which resonates with their business offerings. With the same in mind, Deepinder and Pankaj rebranded FoodieBay as Zomato in 2010.
When asked in an interview about the rebranding, Deepinder said, “The basic idea was to make sure that food was the crux of the brand’s name, and that people thought of food when they heard this term.” Zomato is a play on the word ‘tomato’. The founders also wanted to avoid any confusion with “eBay” in the future when going international.
Fact No. 3: Going public
Why do companies go public? Because they need funds. Zomato raised $ 1.26 bn or ~Rs. 9,372 cr. in IPO by pricing its shares at Rs. 76 each. Zomato’s IPO was oversubscribed ~38 times on the final bidding day. The IPO was one of the biggest by a startup in India.
Fact No. 4: Becoming profitable
Lockdown impacted a lot of businesses, but Zomato rose like a champ! It’s revenue grew from Rs. 1,300 cr. in FY 2019 to Rs. 2,800 cr. in FY 2020. It is already profitable at EBITDA level in the food delivery business. During Q2 2019, it was burning about Rs. 290 cr. every month.
Fact No. 5: Going international
Being an Indian startup, most of the people might think Zomato operates only in India. In fact, Zomato is present in more than 10,000 cities globally. Want to hear something exciting? It is the only Indian food delivery app that operates in 24 countries like Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and more. The company also includes luxury restaurants across the world. These guys are going for it all!
Fact No. 6: Craze over marketing
From sending choley weds bhature invitation mail to using their delivery guys’ happy face all over social media, Zomato’s marketing campaigns have been on point. If you see it, you can’t ignore it. It’s like if it’s red, it’s probably a Zomato ad. Their Zomato Premier League campaign saw a participation of more than 40 lakh users.
Zomato used the Bollywood reference – ‘tu cheese badi hai mast mast’ – to attract all the people who love extra cheese! Let us know your favourite Zomato ad in the comments.
Fact No. 7: Most ordered dish
Well, no surprises here. Zomato’s most ordered dish in India is Biryani! There were over 44 lakh orders placed on Zomato only during the pandemic 2020. It is like Zomato delivered 22 biryanis every minute. Don’t you feel like ordering a biryani right now?
Fact No. 8: Costliest order placed
Can you guess the most expensive order placed on Zomato? Rs. 10,000, Rs. 20,000, Rs. 50,000? No, it was an astonishing Rs. 2 lakh order. To be precise it was a Rs. 1,99,950 order. Interestingly, the person who ordered also got a discount, enough to buy a new iPhone 12 Mini.
