India-based restaurant review platform Zomato has begun discussions with existing investors including Ant Financial, the financial services provider affiliated with e-commerce group Alibaba, to raise $400m, DealStreetAsia reported today.
Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek is also taking part in the talks, and the prospective round would value Zomato at up to $2bn, according to two people close to the development.
Zomato runs an online restaurant listings and reviews platform that covers some 1.2 million restaurants across 24 countries including the US, the UK, Australia, Brazil and South Africa.
The company has begun moving into online food ordering and delivery, a service it was providing in 17 Indian cities as of the start of this month. It is also growing a subscription service called Zomato Gold, which enables users to get discounts at a range of partner restaurants.
The new round would follow about $375m in equity funding, with Zomato most recently securing $150m from Ant Financial in a March 2018 deal that reportedly valued it at $1.1bn, and which included a $50m secondary share purchase from classified listings operator Info Edge.
Info Edge made its first investment in Zomato in 2010, two years after it was founded, and by 2015 owned a marginal majority stake.
Temasek co-led a $60m round for the company later the same year with investment firm Vy Capital, while venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is also an investor.