India is a country with huge diversity of food, people and their tastes and preferences respectively. And with growing urge to explore in people all around, food industry and related companies are rapidly working on making all these varieties of food available in every corner of the country. The most popular entrant to this growth currently is the concept of food delivery at your doorstep and While, talking about food delivery services you just couldn’t miss out the name of ‘Zomato’.

Journey to become a Leader.

First of it’s kind in India, Zomato is one of the leading firm in the business of food delivery. With a total of 1,69,802 delivery partners, 3,89,932 listed restaurants and 1,48,384 food delivery restaurants, Zomato is present in 552 cities in India and 23 other countries. According to The Economic Times Zomato said “it connects customers, restaurants and delivery partners—serving their multiple needs. Customers use the platform to search/discover restaurants, read/write reviews, upload photos, order food, book tables and make payments while dining out. Restaurant partners get marketing tools to acquire customers, while delivery partners earn by making deliveries”. After a tremendous growth in business in FY20 due to the pandemic, The Gurugram- headquartered company said its revenue from operations has grown from Rs 466 crore in FY18 to Rs 2,604 crore in FY20, signifying around 5.5X growth over the three-year period. Revenue from operations for the nine months ended December 31, 2020, stood at Rs 1,301 crore. Despite this terrific revenue growth, between march amd December the company showed a loss of over Rs.682 crore.

The STEP TOWARDS GROWTH !

However, these losses doesn’t stop the growth of the company at any level. Zomato Ltd. launched its three-day initial public offering (IPO) on July 14, making the online food aggregator one of the first Indian startup to list on the national bourses. The company raised as much as Rs 9,375 crore by issuing fresh stock and via an offer for sale at Rs 72-76 per share. It is likely to be valued at nearly $9 billion at the upper end of this price band. With a bid lot size of 195 shares and multiples thereof the net proceeds will be used for organic and inorganic growth initiatives, and general corporate purposes. Zomato is the largest IPO of the year. The IPO provided Zomato with a valuation of Rs 64,365 crore, which is the second biggest since SBI Cards and Payment Services, which is somewhere around Rs 10,341 crore in March 2020. The IPO of this food delivery service was subscribed 38.25 times. It was to be finalised, on July 23. According to the stock exchange data, Zomato got bids for 2,751.25 crore shares against 71.92 crore shares on offer. The IPO is India’s biggest since March 2020.

Zomato has already mobilised Rs 4,196.51 crore from 186 anchor investors on July 13, a day before the issue opened. The IPO size has been reduced to Rs 5,178.49 crore from Rs 9,375 crore earlier. The company, backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co, is the first from a long list of Indian unicorn startups to launch an IPO.