India-based restaurant discovery service Zomato, has now marked its entry into the U.S. market with the acquisition of American media giant IAC-owned UrbanSpoon. With UrbanSpoon on its side now, Zomato boasts of a presence spanning 22 countries across the globe, which covers most of the Europe and now the U.S.
Urbanspoon is a leading, U.S. based restaurant discovery app that aggregates reviews from professional food critics, bloggers, and local diners to help people everywhere decide where and what to eat. Available on the web and through its popular iPhone, Android, and Windows applications, Urbanspoon provides reviews for restaurants throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand
Zomato’s aggressive expansion plans have been hugely dominated by some big name acquisitions. It recently acquired Italy’s Cibando, and ear-marked a sum of $6 Million for futher expansion into Italy.
With the UrbanSpoon acquisition, Zomato will now some 80 Million hits on its app, as compared to 35 Million now, making it world’s biggest restaurant discovery platform. Moreover, it will now encompass a staggering one million restaurants in its database, up from the 300,000 which it currently has.
However, the UrbanSpoon acquisition is not just about numbers, it is also strategic. This acquisition also provides Zomato with a significant user-base in Australia and Canada, where UrbanSpoon has a strong presence. This acquisition will also add to its already dominant position in United Kingdom and New Zealand too.
The acquisition is also significant because of the fact that it is one of those rare occasions, where an Indian company has acquired a popular consumer internet company in the U.S. While Google, Facebook, Yahoo and other U.S. internet companies have acquired Indian early-stage start-ups, Zomato’s UrbanSpoon acquisition will make a significant impression on India’s burgeoning start-up ecosystem.
Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato, said,
Our US entry has been in the cards for a while now, and we’re delighted to be doing so by welcoming Urbanspoon into Zomato. They have a strong presence in the US and the UK, and they also dominate restaurant search in Australia and Canada.
The teams will be working closely over the coming months to integrate Urbanspoon into Zomato. In due course of time, all Urbanspoon traffic will move to Zomato.com, and all Urbanspoon app users will be able to use the Zomato app. This acquisition also has a lot to offer to restaurant businesses. Zomato’s hyperlocal advertising model, combined with the Zomato for Business app suite, will allow restaurant businesses to reach out to, connect with, and engage customers in a better, more connected way than before.
This is Zomato’s sixth acquisition in the last six months, and the biggest one. Zomato has recently acquired local dominant restaurant search players in New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy.
Zomato has till date, raised close to $113 Million from various investors. In its most recent round, the restaurant discovery service raised $60 Million, in a round led by Sequoia Capital.
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