Online restaurant discovery guide Zomato has acquired two restaurant guides in Czech Republic and Slovakia for a combined amount of $3.25 million, as part of its overseas expansion plans.
Zomato has bought food guides Lunchtime.cz in Czech Republic for $2.25 million and obedovat.sk in Slovakia for $1 million, marking its foray into Eastern Europe.
“Lunchtime and Obedovat bring the daily menu feature to the table, which is a key to the dining behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe. Through these acquisitions, together, we will be able to build the largest resource of restaurant information going beyond lunch menus which will enhance both the user and merchant experience,” Deepinder Goyal, cofounder and CEO of Zomato, told
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The company is currently present in 13 countries, including the U.K., New Zealand, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and Qatar, besides India. Started in 2008 by IIT Delhi batch mates Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, the company had raised Rs. 227 crore from Sequoia Capital and existing investor InfoEdge last year.
Zomato currently has a user base of 23 million a month, with nearly 50 per cent of traffic coming from India.
Goyal said the company was looking to expand to Canada, Ireland, Poland, Malaysia, Vietnam, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, KSA, Oman and Colombia over the next 5 - 6 months.
ADVERTISEMENT
“”Acquiring market leaders with local insight and experience in countries we want to expand to is obviously a good choice; but if we keep finding the right people in markets which need a product like ours, we will keep building from scratch,” he added.