GoDaddy acquires social content startup Over

GoDaddy has reached an agreement to acquire Over, the startup behind an app that helps businesses create the photos and videos they need for social media. Over capabilities really target those set of people, who may have an Instagram profile where they need to post visually engaging content but have never gone to GoDaddy.

This follows GoDaddy’s relaunch of its website-building tools last fall under the new name Websites & Marketing, with additional features around email marketing, search engine optimization and maintaining a presence beyond your website, whether that’s on Facebook or Yelp.

Over will continue to operate as a standalone the app, and he said the team will continue to develop new features for the app. At the same time, they’ll be building integrations with Websites & Marketing, for example by taking Over and connecting it “into our insights tool to understand how different elements of [online] presence layer in together, to look at templates and how those actually help different types of small business owners.

The Start-up has more than 1 million active users of its own, who are using it to create more than 220,000 projects every day.

Zomato acquires Sparse Labs

Online restaurant ordering and discovery portal Zomato acquired logistic technology start-up Sparse Labs, as it looks to improve the delivery experience. Sparse Labs has developed an Android based mobile Application which transmits delivery executive’s location to both the restaurant and the consumer in real time.

This technology is critical as for Zomato as 80% of its delivery orders are fulfilled by restaurants. Main rival Swiggy owns its delivery fleet and is counting on controlling the experience as its differentiator. The company said that the Sparse Labs will be renamed as Zomato Trace, and will give free of cost to restaurants on Zomato Food delivery network. Zomato added that restaurants also have the option of using “a proprietary GPS tracker developed by Sparse that can be fitted onto bikes.”

Till last April, Zomato seemed to be considerably hungry, acquiring several startups for its kitty. After that, all was silent for a while, with new of firing and lower valuations. Now, Zomato seems to be back in the acquisition game. After raising a $50 Million round recently, with a valuation of over $1 Billion, the company has begun a buying spree outside its bread and butter restaurant listing companies.

After a bunch of acquisitions across various geographies, Zomato also acquired MapleGraph to launch Zomato Base and has just acquired US based NexTable, a restaurant reservations and table management platform that competes against the likes of Priceline’s OpenTable and SeatMe from Yelp. The company traffic had reportedly grown three times after it acquired UrbanSpoon, and the number of restaurants on the platform supposedly grew seven times and is even present in 23 countries. 

Zomato acquires Urbanspoon

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.

Zomato Acquires Italy Cibando

Restaurant Search Portal Zomato, which raised $60 Million in November and got start up of the year award, has acquired Cibando, one of the Italy’s largest restaurant search services. The company is rapidly expanding its presence outside India. Gurgaon based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd said it will invest $6 Million in Italy over the next two years to grow the team and the business in the country.

Cibando, founded by Guk Kim in 2010, is an online and mobile restaurant search service based in Italy that offers about 7,000 professionally generated reviews and 150,000 photographs taken by food photographers. About 82,000 restaurants are listed on Cibando. The new combined entity will grow to 30-40 people in the next three months and over time the Italy operation is expected to grow to 150-200 people across the top six cities.

With the acquisition of Cibando, Zomato fifth buy this year, the company has a presence in 20 countries. It acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland this year. It further aims to widen its international presence by entering 15 more countries in 2015. The company has so far steered clear of the US, a market dominated by larger competitors such as Yelp, GrubHub, and Open Table.

Zomato competes with Yelp in markets such as the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Chile. In 2015, it can enter into US too. The company is currently valued at $660 Million. It currently employs over 900 people n around 100 cities across 20 countries. The company gets about 35 Million visits per month across its website and mobile applications. It gets more than half of its traffic from its mobile application. Zomato provides detailed restaurant information such as menus, contact details, pictures, geo-coded maps and user reviews on over 310,000 restaurants.