Online restaurant guide Zomato has
stepped into lion’s den in the United States with an estimated $60 Million (Rs
370 cr) acquisition of Seattle based food portal Urbanspoon. This deal will
bring into direct confrontation with Yelp. This is Zomato sixth acquisition in
the last six months and their first in 2015. Zomato is also in talks to raise
$100 Million after this deal.
Urbanspoon is an IAC owned
restaurant information and recommendation service that operates in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Hence,
this acquisition also establishes Zomato presence in Australia and Canada,
while adding to its position in United Kingdom and New Zealand. After the
acquisition, Zomato will be present in 22 countries across the world. Its
restaurant coverage will increase from about 300k restaurants to more than 1
Million restaurants across the globe.
The teams will be working closely
over the coming months to integrate Urbanspoon into Zomato. In due course of
time, all Urbanspoon traffic will move to Zomato.com, and all Urbanspoon app
users will be able to use the Zomato app. This acquisition also has a lot to
offer to restaurant business. Zomato hyper local advertising model, combined
with the Zomato for Business app suite, will allow restaurant businesses to
reach out to, connect with, and engage customers like never before.
This is the biggest acquisition of
Zomato in the last six months. It has recently acquired local restaurant search
player in New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Italy. The startup
is likely to be valued at about $1 Billion after completing the fresh round of
investment. With their aggressive expansions in the world, investors are
planning to invest more in the company. After this acquisition Zomato is in
clear competition with Yelp, which is a public listed company and world
largest.
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