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Zomato

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This article is about the food delivery service. For its owner, formerly known as Zomato Limited, see Eternal Limited.

Zomato
FormerlyFoodieBay (2008–2010)
Type of site
Online food ordering
Founded10 July 2008; 16 years ago (2008-07-10)[1]
HeadquartersGurgaon, Haryana, India
Area servedIndia
OwnerEternal Limited
Founder(s)
  • Deepinder Goyal
  • Pankaj Chaddah
Key people
  • Deepinder Goyal (CEO & MD)
Services
URLzomato.com

Zomato (/zoʊˈmæˈtoʊ/ or /zoʊˈmɑːˈtoʊ/)[2] is an Indian online food ordering and delivery service owned by Eternal Limited. Created in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, it began as a restaurant aggregator, providing menu information, user reviews, and recommendations, and expanding to more than 20 countries.[3] In 2015, Zomato entered the food delivery market in India, which soon after became its core business. As of 2023, it provides food delivery and table reservation options in more than 800 Indian cities, and restaurant discovery services in the UAE.[4]

History

Early years (2008–2010)

On 10 July 2008, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah launched a restaurant-listing website named FoodieBay, while working at Bain & Company. They quit their jobs in November 2009 to focus on the website full-time, and incorporated the company on 18 January 2010 as DC Foodiebay Online Services Private Limited.[5][6] In November 2010, they renamed the website as Zomato as they were unsure if they would "just stick to food" and to avoid a potential naming conflict with eBay.[5][7] A mobile app for Zomato was released the following month.[8]

Expansion (2011–2015)

Zomato logo in 2012
Availability of Zomato in 2015

With the introduction of .xxx domains in 2011, Zomato also launched zomato.xxx, a site dedicated to food porn.[9] Later in 2011, Zomato introduced online ticketing for events on its website.[10]

In 2011, Zomato expanded across India to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.[11] In 2012, it expanded operations internationally in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka,[12] Qatar,[13] the United Kingdom,[14] the Philippines,[13] and South Africa.[15] In 2013, it expanded to New Zealand,[16] Turkey, Brazil, and Indonesia, with websites and apps available in Turkish, Portuguese, Indonesian, and English languages.[17] In April 2014, it was launched in Chile and Portugal, which was followed by launches in Canada, Lebanon, and Ireland in 2015.[18][19][20]

In January 2015, Zomato acquired Seattle-based restaurant discovery portal Urbanspoon, which led to the firm's entry into the United States and Australia.[21] This U.S. expansion brought Zomato into direct competition with similar models such as Yelp and Foursquare.[21] In June 2015, Zomato announced the closure of Urbanspoon, with its traffic being redirected to Zomato.[22]

Entry into food delivery (2015–2019)

Zomato's logo from 2016 to 2018

In March 2015, Zomato started its food delivery service in India,[23] initially partnering with hyperlocal logistics companies such as Delhivery, Grab and Runnr to fulfill deliveries from restaurants that did not have their own delivery service.[24][25] After acquiring Runnr in 2017, it transitioned to delivering with its own fleet.[25][26]

In January 2016, it launched table reservation feature on its application in India.[27]

In February 2017, it introduced a paid membership program called Zomato Gold using which subscribers could get offers and discounts on dining and food delivery at Zomato's partner restaurants.[28]

In March 2019, Zomato's UAE food delivery business was sold to Talabat.[29]

2020–present

In January 2020, Zomato acquired Uber Eats' India business in an all-stock deal, giving Uber a 9.99% stake in the company. Consequently, Uber Eats redirected its Indian users, restaurants, and delivery partners to the Zomato platform. The deal was estimated to increase Zomato's market share to 52%, after the absorption of Uber Eats' 5% market share.[30]

Between April and June 2020, owing to a rising demand for online grocery ordering amid the COVID-19 lockdown, Zomato delivered groceries and essentials under a service named Zomato Market in over 80 Indian cities.[31][32] In April 2020, it introduced contactless dining at its partner restaurants.[33] In May 2020, Zomato started delivering alcohol in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha,[34] before pulling out in April 2021 citing poor unit economics and scalability.[35]

In November 2021, Zomato announced that it would cease its services in all countries except India and the UAE.[36] By early 2024, it had completed the liquidation of more than 10 overseas subsidiaries, which were primarily focused on restaurant discovery and reviews.[37][38][39]

In April 2022, Zomato launched a pilot of 10-minute food delivery called Zomato Instant.[40] It was shut down within a year, and relaunched as Zomato Quick in January 2025.[41]

In August 2022, Zomato launched an inter-city food delivery service called Legends,[42] which was stopped two years later.[43]

Security breaches

On 4 June 2015, an Indian security researcher hacked the Zomato website and gained access to information about 62.5 million users. Using the vulnerability, he was able to access the personal data of users such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and Instagram private photos using their Instagram access token. Zomato fixed the issue within 48 hours of it becoming apparent.[44]

On 18 May 2017, a security blog called HackRead claimed that over 17 million Zomato user records including emails and password hashes had been stolen due to a security breach. The company stated that no payment information or credit card details were stolen.[45] The hacker removed the stolen user data from the dark web after Zomato agreed to start a bug bounty program.[46]

Feeding India

Started in 2014 by Ankit Kawatra, Feeding India is a nonprofit organisation which serves free meals to underprivileged people with the help of volunteers.[47] Feeding India was acquired by Zomato in July 2019.[48] In May 2022, Zomato claimed that Feeding India was serving over 200,000 meals every day under its Daily Feeding Program.[49]

Zomato Feeding India has organised benefit concerts in Mumbai to raise awareness about malnutrition in India; it was headlined by Post Malone (in 2022)[50] and Dua Lipa (in 2024).[51]

See also

References

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  2. ^ "How does one pronounce 'Zomato'? CEO Deepinder Goyal says..." Mint. 9 April 2023. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
  3. ^ Khosla, Varuni; Srinivasan, Supraja. "Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah quits as it shuffles top management". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2020.
  4. ^ Krishna, Tanya (30 October 2023). "Zomato delivered 647 million orders worth Rs 263.1 billion across 800 cities during FY23, says Rakesh Ranjan". Financial Express. Retrieved 22 March 2025.
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  20. ^ "Zomato launches in Ireland, opens revenue source by making advertisement live on its app". Firstpost.com. 26 November 2014. Archived from the original on 27 December 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  21. ^ a b "Restaurant Discovery Site Zomato Buys IAC's Urbanspoon, Enters The U.S." TechCrunch. 12 January 2015. Archived from the original on 27 February 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
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  25. ^ a b Sen, Anirban (13 September 2017). "Zomato acquires food delivery start-up Runnr". Livemint.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2018. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
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  31. ^ "Zomato taps into grocery spurt amid Covid-19 lockdown; competes with BigBasket, Grofers, Swiggy, others". Financial Express. Archived from the original on 1 October 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
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  33. ^ Bhushan, Ratna (18 April 2020). "Zomato introduces contactless dining". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 26 July 2021. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
  34. ^ "Zomato, Swiggy launch alcohol delivery service in Odisha". The Financial Express. 27 May 2020. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
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  37. ^ "Popular food review website leaves Australia". 9News. Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
  38. ^ Bevin, Andrew (10 April 2023). "The reason menu broker Zomato has quietly exited New Zealand". Newsroom. Retrieved 12 November 2024.
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  40. ^ Mittal, Apoorva (22 April 2022). "Zomato's 10-minute food delivery goes live in Gurgaon today". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 19 June 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  41. ^ Srivastav, Udisha (30 January 2025). "Zomato rolls out in-app 10-minute food delivery service, Zomato Quick". Business Standard. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  42. ^ "Zomato launches 'Intercity legends': Now order food from other cities, here's how it will work". The Indian Express. 31 August 2022. Archived from the original on 2 September 2022. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
  43. ^ Roy, Supriya (22 August 2024). "Zomato shuts down intercity food delivery service Legends". The Times of India. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  44. ^ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem". Techinasia.com. Archived from the original on 8 June 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  45. ^ Thomas, Anu. "Zomato hacked - Security breach results in 17 million user data stolen". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
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  47. ^ Nair, Divya. "The 24 year old who wants to feed India". Rediff. Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  48. ^ "Zomato acquires food donation start-up Feeding India". Mint. 9 July 2019. Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  49. ^ "Update: Now serving Two Lakh meals a day under the 'Daily Feeding Program'". Zomato. Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  50. ^ "Rapper Post Malone arrives in Mumbai for his first India concert later today". Business Today. 10 December 2022. Archived from the original on 13 November 2023. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
  51. ^ "India, I'm coming back!: Dua Lipa announces return to India for Zomato concert". The Indian Express. 25 August 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
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