Zomato, the India-based restaurant reviews and listings platform backed by e-commerce company Info Edge, closed $60m yesterday in a round co-led by Singaporean state-backed fund Temasek and investment firm Vy Capital.
Zomato operates a search engine and reviews platform for local restaurants and eateries. It will use the cash to scale its service into a more diversified online food ordering platform encompassing online ordering, table reservations, cashless payments and its newly launched Whitelabel platform.
Whitelabel, also launched yesterday, is a software service that can be used by restaurants to run and market their businesses online.
The platform includes push notifications, real-time information and menu management, but its most prominent feature allows businesses to launch their own branded native apps to connect with customers.
Zomato has now raised $225m since it was founded in 2008 from investors including Info Edge, Vy Capital and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. It was valued at about $900m in the latest round, according to the Times of India.
InfoEdge has been an investor since seed stage and held a 50.1% share of the company, as of its last funding round, a $50m series F closed in April 2015. However, Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani told the Economic Times in June it may not invest further money if Zomato’s valuation gets too high.
The latest funding comes as Zomato continues to expand. It is now present in 22 countries, having acquired US-based rival Urbanspoon in January this year for between $50m and $60m.
Umesh Hora, Zomato’s chief executive, said in a blog post announcing the funding: “More of our markets have turned profitable recently and we are well capitalised for the next two years, putting us in a great position to extend our business verticals to more global markets.
“Just last week, we launched our online ordering services in the UAE, and will soon be rolling it out to Australia and South Africa. Over the next few months, we’ll be launching our table reservations service Zomato Book, our point-of-sale system Zomato Base, and rolling out our Whitelabel platform across geographies.”