India-based online restaurant listings platform Zomato has confirmed it has raised $150m in funding from Ant Financial Services, the financial services affiliate of e-commerce firm Alibaba.
Ant Financial acquired an additional $50m of shares from classified listings provider Info Edge through a secondary transaction. The deal valued Zomato at more than $1bn, it said in a statement that followed media reports last month touting a $1.1bn valuation.
Zomato has created an online listings and review platform that covers some 1.4 million restaurants across 24 countries. It intends to use the latest funding to enhance its product in its existing markets, and will link to Ant Financial and its partners to expand payment options.
Douglas Feagin, president of Ant Financial International, said: “Ant Financial is pleased to be part of Zomato’s growth journey and hopes to contribute to its future development into a full-fledged food services platform. We plan to work closely with Zomato and share Ant’s business and technology know-how in building lifestyle apps.
“Through our strategic mobile wallet partners in India and across Southeast Asia, we see immense opportunities to collaborate with Zomato to bring a much improved user experience around dining, food ordering and delivery.”
The $150m investment increased Zomato’s equity funding to $375m. Info Edge first invested in 2010 and owned 50.1% of the company as of a $50m round in 2015.
Zomato’s other investors include Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek and investment firm Vy Capital, which co-led a $60m round for the company later that year, as well as venture capital firm and earlier backer Sequoia Capital.