Zomato to sell UAE business to Delivery Hero

Berlin based food delivery player Delivery Hero has acquired United Arab Emirates (UAE) business of Gurugram based food delivery and restaurant discovery company, Zomato.

The acquisition will add 1.2 Mn monthly orders and $2 Mn monthly revenue to Delivery Hero’s Middle East and North Africa region business and will strengthen its leadership position in the UAE. The online food ordering company Delivery Hero is present across 41 countries in Europe, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Delivery Hero also operates its own delivery service primarily in over 200 cities around the world. In India, Delivery Hero was invested in Foodpanda but later sold it for 1% stake in Ola in 2017.

UAE was the first global foray of Zomato in 2012 and soon accounted for 20% of its orders. The company also launched its premium service Zomato Gold in UAE in 2017 and in one year had over 380 restaurant partners for over 15,000 Zomato Gold members.

Zomato has been in a tough situation since its Bengaluru-based rival Swiggy raised $1 Bn in 2018, at the end to the year after joining the unicorn club earlier in the year. To challenge this, Zomato has also been in talks to raise a large funding round of $500 Mn-$1 Bn. Zomato recorded $1Bn in annual gross merchandise value. It also posted a 40% growth in its revenue for FY18 and targeted expansion to 100 cities across India.

Zomato acquires TechEagle

Online food delivery company Zomato has acquired TechEagle Innovations, a Lucknow based startup that works exclusively on drones. TechEagle will help Zomato move towards offering drone based food delivery in India, by creating a hub-to-hub delivery network powered by hybrid multi-rotor drones.

TechEagle was founded in 2015 by IIT Kanpur alumni. It works with a prime focus on custom-made drones capable of carrying up to 5 kg payloads. It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) recently legalized flying commercial drones and also announced a policy called Drone Regulations 1.0. While these guidelines banned the use of drones for delivery of goods and food, on September 19, minister of state for civil aviation hinted at including a clause on the application of drones for ecommerce and food delivery in the draft Drone Regulations 2.0.

India is currently in the early stage of aerial innovations and is taking baby steps towards building a future where users can expect a drone to deliver the food they ordered online. Zomato currently delivers 22 Mn monthly orders and is leaving no stone unturned as far as last-mile delivery is concerned. The company boasts a last-mile delivery fleet of 1.5 lakh partners and has over 75,000 restaurant partners offering food delivery services across 100 cities in India.

So far, Zomato has made 12 acquisitions globally. In the last two years, Runnr (September 2017) and TongueStun ($18 Mn, September 2018) have been its prime acquisitions aimed at boosting its food delivery and logistics network. Other startups acquired by Zomato include MapleGraph, Sparse Labs, NexTable, Mekanist, Urbanspoon, Cibando, LunchTime, Obedovat, Menu Mania, and gastronauci.pl.

Ola’s Foodpanda acquires Holachef

Foodpanda, the online food ordering and delivery startup owned by Ola, has acquired Mumbai based food-tech startup Holachef Hospitality Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed sum. Foodpanda will take over Holachef’s employees and kitchen equipment’s. 

Holachef marks Ola’s second acquisition within a year, which bought Foodpanda from Germany’s Delivery Hero in December last year. Ola, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, is seemingly leaving no stone unturned to fight it out in the online food ordering space dominated by Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd) and Zomato (Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd). Ola rival Uber India Pvt. Ltd too has entered the space with UberEats India.

Foodpanda will foray into cloud kitchens with its acquisitions. It also plans to launch its own food brand across categories. The company claims to have a network of over 1 lakh delivery partners and access to over 150 million customers. Holachef delivers home-cooked food to customers and was operational in Mumbai and Pune. The company, backed by Ratan Tata, Kalaari Capital and India Quotient, had raised $9.6 million cumulatively till date, according to data from Crunchbase.

While India’s food-tech space has seen rapid expansion in the past couple of years, several startups—including TinyOwl, Yumist and Dazo—operating in the domain have shut shop. Bengaluru-based SpoonJoy was acquired by online groceries firm Grofers in 2015.

Foodpanda in talks to buy Holachef

Foodpanda, the online food ordering and delivery marketplace owned by Ola, is in advanced talks to buy Mumbai based food tech startup Holachef Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which shuttered operations nearly three months ago. Foodpanda will acquire Holachef Staff, brand name and kitchen equipment.

A potential acquisition would be the second within a year for Ola, India’s largest taxi aggregator. Last December, the company, run by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, bought Foodpanda from its German parent. A potential deal signals Ola’s aggressive expansion to compete in the online food ordering and delivery segment alongside players like Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd), Zomato (Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd) and the recent entrant UberEats India.

Founded in 2014, Holachef, which delivers home-cooked food to customers, closed operations in April. The startup’s Twitter handle is flooded with customer queries about its sudden absence from delivery platforms. Holachef, which was operational in Mumbai and Pune, had raised ₹ 2 crore from diamond merchant Ashok Kumar in February this year. The company backed by Ratan Tata, Kalaari Capital and venture capital fund India Quotient has raised $9.6 million cumulatively till date.

Ola was also exploring creating an independent food technology company on the lines of Flipkart’s model and was in talks to buy food brand FreshMenu (Foodvista India Pvt. Ltd) along with another private label. Holachef joins the likes of Gurugram-based Twigly that three weeks back shut operations after being in business for three years. Among other food-tech businesses, Spoonjoy (acquired by grocery delivery firm Grofers), TinyOwl, Yumist and Dazo had to shut shop as raising funds amid immense competition became increasingly difficult.

Ola acquires Foodpanda India Unit

Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has acquired food delivery start-up Foodpanda India from its German Parent Delivery Hero AG in an all-stock deal that will see the ride hailing major infuse $200 Million in Foodpanda India operations. Under the deal, Foodpanda’s India business will be transferred to Ola in exchange for the latter’s stock.

The deal marks Ola’s foray into the online food ordering and delivery segment, a business shaped in India by the likes of Zomato and Swiggy, and one where Ola’s biggest rival, Uber, has been making strides recently through its unit UberEATS. Ola too tested what it called Ola Cafe in 2014, but shut down the unit shortly after. The collaboration between Ola and Foodpanda India unlocks the power of a partnership that will help Foodpanda India grow as the most preferred online food delivery service in the country.

The deal comes months after Bengaluru-based Ola raised a huge $1.1 billion (another $1 billion is likely to come in soon) from SoftBank Group and Tencent Holdings to strengthen its position in India. Mobility start-ups with terabytes of data on local routes and consumer app usage patterns are generally believed to be better placed in running a delivery business. In 2014, San Francisco-based Uber launched UberEATS as a pilot project and has since taken the service to 27 countries—and seven Indian cities in quick succession since May this year.

Foodpanda India was set up as the local unit of Berlin-based Foodpanda GmbH, a Rocket Internet portfolio firm, in 2012. The company has had a tough stint in India, given service quality issues, layoffs and ceding of market share to rivals. Last year, Delivery Hero acquired Foodpanda GmbH but the deal did not have a substantial trickle-down impact on India operations.

Swiggy acqui-hires 48East

Bengaluru based food ordering and delivery startup Swiggy has acqui-hired the management team of Bengaluru based gourmet Asian Food startup 48East in order to further broaden its senior leadership. Following this acqui-hire, the company looks to serve its consumers more efficiently and consequently grow in the market.

Swiggy Access, for the uninitiated, is an initiative aimed at reaching more customers and making its delivery more seamless. Geared towards facilitating the business expansion of partners on the platform, the new service allows restaurant partners to set up kitchen spaces in areas where they do not have a physical presence.

Swiggy currently has a presence in more than 10 cities across the country and claims to have tie-ups with around 20,000 restaurants in these cities. The Bengaluru-based startup has raised a total funding of $155.5 Mn (INR 1000 Cr) till date and clocks over 4 Mn transactions per month on its platform. By acqui-hiring 48East, the online food delivery platform is looking to bolster its presence in the market, amidst competition from highly funded players like UberEATS and Zomato.

Its biggest rival Zomato has also made a number of investments and acquisitions in the last couple of months. In the second of September, the foodtech unicorn took over Bengaluru-based Runnr, a B2B online service provider platform for hyperlocal logistics services. The move was aimed at strengthening Zomato’s food delivery capacity. A week later, the Gurugram-based company also invested an undisclosed amount of funding in the Hyderabad-based foodtech startup, TinMen.

Zomato acquires delivery startup Runnr

Food technology startup Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd has acquired delivery start-up Runnr as part of a widely expected, all stock deal that would help the former significantly shore up its food delivery business, amid intense competition from rapidly growing rivals such as Swiggy.

The deal also hands out a lifeline to Runnr which has struggled to raise funds in the recent past. It has raised about $20-25 million since it started out in 2015 from investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Runnr was a product of a merger between hyperlocal delivery start-up Roadrunnr and food-ordering start-up TinyOwl.

Goyal said Runnr was already fulfilling about 300,000 orders a month. He added that Runnr founder Mohit Kumar will remain chief executive and will continue to work on the strategic vision for the start-up with the rest of his team. He said the acquired firm will continue to be run independently by Kumar.

Prior to its buyout of Runnr, Zomato used to aggregate restaurants on its platform and works with third-party delivery partners such as Runnr and Grab to execute deliveries. In September 2015, Zomato had picked up a minority stake in Grab (Grab a Grub Services Pvt. Ltd) to bolster its food delivery business.

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. 

Hello Curry acquires The First Meal

Quick service restaurant chain Hello Curry Pvt. Ltd has acquired The First Meal, a food and delivery startup which takes pre-orders for customized health food for cash and stock. The acquisition allows Hello Curry to enter the breakfast and meal box segment.

The food tech startup industry has been facing shutdowns. Lack of sustainable growth models in a fragmented market and harder customer acquisition has seen investors shying away too, after the initial euphoria. Hello curry which specializes in Indian food has been positioning itself as a quick delivery, hygienic, and convenient chain. This acquisition is Hello Curry attempt to draw a sustainable revenue model for the long term, even as its 33 outlets in Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru remain profitable.

The company is in the process of raising $2-3 Million to take care of the regular growth plan in India and would separately raise funds for overseas expansion in a few months. The First Meal has a subscription platform and through their meal box concept it provides nutritious and consciously prepared food. Subscriptions can be profitable as the business as the business is predictable and Hello Curry would only leverage the existing kitchens and infrastructure it has to reach the subscription customers.

Through First Meal, the company aims to sell 5,000 meals every day, within the next six months. Currently First Meal serves five types of diet balanced breakfast items and daily changing nutritious lunches, tapping around 10,000 boxes a month, with 89% customer retention rate.

Innerchef acquires EatOnGo and Flavour Labs

Food technology start-up Innerchef, which operates in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals segment has acqui-hired two food startups, Flavour Labs in Gurgaon and EatOnGo in Bengaluru, signaling further consolidation in the food tech segment starved of cash after investors clawed back on investments late last year.

Acqui-hiring is essentially done for the target company talent pool more than its products and services. The acquisition of Flavour Labs, a food truck company, will help Innerchef enter the mobile kitchen segment, while EatOnGo, which specializes in breakfasts, will help the company expand its presence in Bengaluru. EatOnGo was launched in May 2015 while Flavour Labs started its operations in 2014.

In September last year, Innerchef had raised Rs. 11 Crore in a pre-series A funding round from a clutch of investors including redBus and Paytm founders. Apart from ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals, Innerchef operates a Hyperlocal marketplace for desserts sourced from home bakers and bakeries in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

Several food tech start-ups have shut shop following a slowdown in investment while some have been acquired by well capitalized rivals. While Internet first kitchen SpoonJoy was bought by Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers, another startup Dazo shut shop the same month. Bigger Businesses such as Zomato and TinyOwl have pruned their workforce last year.

Dineout acquires inResto Service

Hotel Reservation Platform Dineout has acquired Bengaluru based inResto Service Pvt. Ltd. Dineout, part of Times Internet Ltd was founded in 2012. It has listings of over 20,000 restaurants and operates in seven Indian cities. Dineout has raised an undisclosed amount in funding so far in January 2014.

Food tech companies have been adding new services to consolidate its market share in the fast growing space. Deepinder Goyal founded Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd. launched services to reserves a table, book cabs and make payments on its app as well. InResto has so far seated over 1 Million restaurant diners in three cities in the six months since its launch.

The acquisition will ensure that restaurants get one dashboard to manage different functions like reservation, home delivery, takeaways, customer feedback and mobile payments and other restaurant management function. Post the acquisition the whole team at inResto will join Dineout in Bengaluru.

In coming months, Dineout is planning to launch a developer platform that will enable any service across the food tech ecosystem to integrate with them to reach a wider set of restaurants. 

Flipkart acquires Appiterate

E-commerce major Flipkart has been very clear about its mobile only strategy and in order to strengthen its presence in the area of mobile technology, it has acquired a New-Delhi based mobile engagement and marketing automation company Appiterate. This is Flipkart third acquisition of this year.

Appiterate helps E-commerce companies target customers better through push notifications and in-app messages. The funding team has a strong experience in the mobile app space and has in the past built mobile apps for companies such as Microsoft, Zomato, Groupon, Sears etc. In a short span Appiterate has carved out a niche in the industry as being one of the most disruptive companies in its space.

Flipkart is planning to go mobile-only within a year. Following the announcement that Myntra will shut down its website on May 1, Flipkart had said the E-commerce firm will too shift to an app only model within a year as traffic from mobile had grown nearly 10 times in just 12 months. Flipkart has been persistently looking to improve and expand its mobile app capabilities and plans to invest in and acquire other companies in this domain.

After this acquisition, Appiterate mobile marketing automation platform will be integrated into Flipkart mobile app to help in precise targeting of users based on their activity on the app and website. Appiterate has raised money from institutional investors like SAIF partners and angel investors.

Zomato acquires US based NexTable

After acquiring data firm MaplePOS few days back, now India based restaurant listing site Zomato has acquired US based restaurant reservations and table management platform NexTable. Service will soon be renamed as ‘Zomato Book’. Zomato will be taking NexTable technology in three international markets i.e. India, UAE, and Australia. This is the company second acquisition in US after Urbanspoon for $52 Million.

NexTable enables customers to make restaurant reservations online in real time and includes table management and marketing tools for restaurants. Zomato has been focusing on creating a seamless in app-experience for customers, and has been working on moving beyond just restaurant search and discovery, into reservations, online ordering, and in-app cash payments.

Zomato has been aggressively growing its product offering for restaurant business. Adding NexTable and MaplePOS into the fold now enables Zomato to offer POS Solutions, table management and reservation system services to restaurant businesses. It already allows restaurants businesses to update their menus, deals and discounts on a real time basis on Zomato.

The NexTable deals make for a total of nine acquisitions in the past nine months for Zomato. The largest of these was the acquisition of Urbanspoon. Zomato has also acquired dominant local restaurant search players in New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, and Italy.

Zomato Acquires MaplePOS

Online Restaurant Guide Zomato announced the acquisition of MaplePOS, a cloud based point of sale product for restaurants developed by a group of techies from Delhi. Gurgaon based Zomato has already renamed the MaplePOS product to ‘Zomato Base’. Amount of Deal is not disclosed.

MaplePOS offers restaurants features such as menu and inventory management, and has built in payment solution to accept debit and credit card payments. It counts other Indian Players such as Posist and FusionResto. It offers software to manage menus, inventory, recipes, electronic receipts and a stealth feature which is not disclosed. This is the first product acquisition for Zomato.

Since July 2014, Zomato has acquired seven restaurant search and listing companies in various parts of the world. In February, this year, Zomato launched its Uber like Cashless product in Dubai. The company new buyout is a step forward towards taking an advantage over rival Foodpanda which is also aggressively expanding in its space even as Zomato gears up for launch of food service in India, this month.

The online food services market is valued at over $14 Billion in India and $371 Billion globally and increasing technology is becoming an integral part of servicing the palette. Zomato will work on integrating the POS product service with the consumer product over the next few months, after the integration, Zomato will start offering Zomato base to restaurant business across the world this fall.

Foodpanda Acquires JustEat

Online food delivery market place Foodpanda.in had acquired food-ordering portal Just Eat India in all stock deal. Just Eat Plc., the largest shareholder in Achindra Online Marketing Pvt. Ltd that runs Just Eat India, will receive a minority stake in Foodpanda.in as part of the deal. This is seventh food startups Foodpanda bought across Asia.

UK based JustEat will acquire undisclosed stake in combined entity, which will be India’s largest food-ordering provider with a presence in more than 200 cities across 12,000 restaurants. The online food services market is valued at over $14 Billion in India and $371 Billion globally. Zomato, which is expected to leverage its listings of about 50,000 restaurants in India by building its own ordering platform globally, is likely to pose the biggest challenge to Rocket Internet, backed Foodpanda.

The purchase is second in four months by the company, which in November acquired food delivery business TastyKhana.in for an undisclosed amount. The latest deal comes in at a time when restaurant search portal Zomato is looking to enter the online food ordering space in India. Just Eat Plc., was launched in Denmark in 2001 and was traded publicly on the London Stock Exchange. It entered India by acquiring a majority stake in Hungry in Bengaluru in 2011. Hungry was launched in 2006. Today, the company collaborates with more than 2000 restaurants.

Foodpanda.in was launched in India in May 2012, operates in 39 countries across five continents. Together with TastyKhana and JustEat, the brand is present in more than 200 cities and partners over 12,000 restaurants. The company currently gets more than 100,000 unique visitors daily on its platform. In August last year, Foodpanda raised $60 Million in new financing form a group of investors and existing backer Rocket Internet.

Zomato acquires Turkey based Mekanist

Online restaurant search service company Zomato continues to be on an acquisition store. The firm, launched in 2008 and valued at $660 Million, announced it had acquired Turkey based Mekanist. However, the company did not disclose the size of the deal, but it is estimated at $35-50 Million. This is Zomato seventh acquisition in last seven months.

A few days earlier, Zomato had acquired Urbanspoon in the US for $52 Million. With the acquisition of Mekanist, the restaurant search company will expand into several cities in Turkey. Its coverage will increase from about 27,500 restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to about 75,000 across the country, serving users about three million times a month.

Ali Servet Eyuboglu and Eren founded Mekanist eight years ago. Zomato had forayed into Turkey in November 2013, making its website and apps available to users in Turkish and English. Through the next two months, the company will roll out an integrated product in the two languages for users and business owners. Zomato has a team of 27 people in Turkey; most of them who are is based out of Istanbul.

Mekanist has about 190,000 listed establishments such as popular restaurants, cafes, and bars, along with about 500,000 reviews from its 1.5 Million signed up user base on the web and mobile platforms. Mekanist entire traffic and restaurant related content would now move to Zomato, while Mekanist app users will be able to use the Zomato app. In addition, restaurants could benefit from Zomato hyper-local advertising model and target customers. The ‘Zomato for Business’ app suite will help restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers. 

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.

L & T Technology to acquire Dell engineering services

Larsen and Toubro Limited is an Indian Multinational Conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company has business interest in engineering, construction, manufacturing goods, information technology, and financial services. It was recognized as the company of the year in Economic Times 2010 Awards.

Dell is an American privately owned Multinational computer technology based in Texas, United States. It sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, cameras, printers, and electronics built by other manufacturers. Company is well known for its innovation in Supply chain Management and E-commerce business.

L & T Technology services is going to buy Engineering services division of US based Dell Inc. The deal has got the nod of Competition Commission of India (CCI) and is waiting for approvals from US regulatory. This acquisition will help L & T establish itself as a premier engineering services provider by adding local delivery centres in North America. This strategic acquisition will strengthen L & T technology services global position in the $4 Billion transportation engineering research & development market.

Dell engineering services has delivery centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore, India. According to a comment mentioned by L & T chief executive Keshab Panda has said that the company will not spend more than $50 Million on any acquisition. In June this year, L & T Technology services acquired 74 percent stake in Thales Software India Pvt. Ltd. to grow its avionics Business. Recently, L & T said that it is planning to start its IPO process for both its technology subsidiaries i.e. L&T InfoTech and L&T Technology services by 2016.

This is the first acquisition this year in technical industry by an Indian company acquiring US Company. Other than this, Indian Internet firms are expanding their business internationally and one of them is Zomato. Jabong has already entered into UK market with a small office in London. Rocket Internet Printvenue is also entering into Australian and Singapore market. 

Zomato acquires Poland Gastronauci

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah as Foodiebay founded Zomato in 2008. Starting with 1200 restaurants in and around Delhi, they quickly expanded to Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune. In 2010, Info-edge invested $1 Million in the company. In 2010, it rebranded as Zomato to have a brand name that was short and easy to remember.

In the recent news, India based online and mobile restaurant search and discovery services acquired Poland’s leading restaurant service Gastronauci. This was Zomato fourth acquisition in last three months and they have now increased their presence in 16 countries. Ola Lazar founded Gastronauci in 2007. Zomato wants to be Google of food and presently they are in aim of covering Central and Eastern European Market.

Backed by $37 Million it raised from Sequioa Capital and Info-Edge in 2013 it acquired three more firms this year. These include New Zealand based restaurant service MenuMania in July 2014, Czech Republic based restaurant guide Lunchtime.cz, and Slovakia popular restaurant guide Obedovat.sk. Zomato now provides information over 260,000 restaurants across 16 countries. The market it operates includes UK, UAE, South Africa, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, Indonesia, Srilanka, and Qatar. It also operates across 35 cities in India.

In India, it provides information on over 60,000 restaurants. In the next one year, Zomato plans to enter into nine new markets these includes Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, Vietnam, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and Colombia. For Zomato the big markets are in US, Germany, Australia, Japan, UK, and Russia. Their competitors in other countries are Yelp, which is present in 28 markets, JustEat, which is present in 13 countries, and Open Table, which has its presence in 20 countries. The primary focuses of these companies are on food ordering and table bookings and they do not aid discovery like Zomato.

Zomato wants to first Internet based Indian brand out to India. The day Zomato did their fourth acquisition, Delhi based Website performance testing startup Wignify acquired US based Concept Feedback, a community platform of user experience experts for online. In the coming days we may see fashion and retail giant Jabong to operate in UK and Printvenue in Australia.