How Deepinder Goyal’s Zomato entered into the Rs 1,000-crore club

How Deepinder Goyal’s Zomato entered into the Rs 1,000-crore clubNEW DELHI: On the morning of 29 October, from about 9 am, Deepinder Goyal sat outside the labour ward in the corridors of the Max Hospital in Gurgaon, signing on dotted lines that his lawyers pointed him to.

His wife went into early labour the previous night and they had driven to the hospital. But he couldn't avoid work. His company was closing a new round of funding and as CEO and founder, his signatures couldn't be done without. So he had asked his colleagues to come to the hospital.

By 10:30 am, his undivided attention was called for inside as his wife went into labour. At 11:50 am, the 30-yearold engineer held his firstborn child — Siara, a baby girl — in his arms. At half past noon, he stepped out and turned his mobile phone back on.

Some colleagues were waiting with the final set of papers. He placed a bag on the nurse's counter for want of a table in the corridor and signed off on a major investment into his company.

The deal valued Zomato, the company he started in his bedroom four years ago, at Rs 1,006 crore ($161 million).

The founders' equity — the stake held by him, his co-founder and some employees — was now worth Rs 328 crore.

That morning, he became a father, and by the reckoning of some — particularly his investors Info Edge and Sequoia Capital — the entrepreneur best positioned to build a formidable global internet company out of India.

Zomato, if you have not used it yet, is a restaurant discovery website and mobile app. It lists information on restaurants — menus, photos, reviews curated for credibility and contact info — for 180,500 restaurants in 36 cities. It is currently in 11 countries (including India) and plans to be in 22 new countries in the next two years. The current round of funding is meant to bankroll this expansion.

It makes its money from ads restaurants place on their pages. Restaurants advertise with Zomato because of better targeting. They can pay only to be displayed when someone is searching for a location — 'Colaba', for instance — and further narrow it to be displayed only for 'take outs in Colaba'.

Goyal says revenues are now hitting Rs 3 crore each month — on an average, 35% of revenue is from overseas markets. All the money comes from the website. They are yet to start monetising the popular mobile app.

 md.aquil alam

pgdm 1st sem