Zomato ditched its first name, FoodieBay, partly to avoid a fight with eBay
In 2008 two Bain & Company consultants, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, launched a restaurant-listing site called FoodieBay. Two years later they renamed it Zomato, partly because they might not stick to food and partly to steer clear of a naming clash with eBay. It grew into one of India's biggest food delivery services.
The site went live on 10 July 2008, and the founders quit their jobs in November 2009 to run it full-time, incorporating the business in January 2010. A mobile app followed the rename in November 2010. Early experiments were playful: when .xxx web addresses appeared in 2011, Zomato opened zomato.xxx, devoted to food photography.
At first it was about discovery, with menus, reviews and recommendations. It spread across Indian cities in 2011 and then abroad, reaching places as varied as the UAE, Turkey, Brazil, Chile and Ireland, more than 20 countries by 2015. That January it bought the Seattle restaurant guide Urbanspoon to enter the United States and Australia, then shut Urbanspoon down within months and redirected its visitors.
The real business turned out to be delivery. Zomato began delivering food in India in March 2015, first through logistics partners, then with its own riders after buying one of them, Runnr, in 2017. In January 2020 it absorbed Uber Eats' Indian operation in an all-stock deal that gave Uber 9.99% of the company and was projected to lift Zomato's market share to 52%. Overseas, the discovery business was wound down; by early 2024 more than ten foreign subsidiaries had been liquidated, leaving only the UAE outside India.
Not every venture stuck. Alcohol delivery, an inter-city service called Legends and a parcel service called Xtreme were all dropped. Its charity arm, Feeding India, claimed in May 2022 to serve over 200,000 meals a day. By 2023 Zomato was delivering food in more than 800 Indian cities.
Source: Zomato
