Zomato buys Urbanspoon, gets closer to becoming 'Google of Food'

Zomato Media Private Ltd which runs a restaurant information portal under the brand 'Zomato' has purchased UrbanSpoon.com for an all cash deal of $52 million (Rs 327 crore). 

UrbanSpoon has presence in the US, Australia and Canada. 

Zomato has embarked on an aggressive expansion plan and this acquisition is its sixth in as many months. The company now has presence in 22 countries in total including New Zealand, United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, US, Canada and Australia. 

Zomato hopes that the latest buy will boost its restaurant listings to one million and it will get close to its aim of becoming the 'Google of Food'. 

The portal also aims to increase its web traffic to over 80 million a month, mainly from the US market of UrbanSpoon. The company looks at the global major Yelp as its competitor which has nearly 140 million unique visitors every month. 

Currently largest share of Zomato's traffic comes from India and the UAE. 

Fundraise

In November last year, Zomato had raised $60 million from Info Edge (India) and Sequoia. 

In a regulatory filing on January 13, 2015, Info Edge said that the company has an aggregate investment of Rs 327 crore in Zomato and holds 55.13% stake in the company. It further said, "The overall holding on a fully converted and diluted basis will remain at 50.1%." 

The share price of Info Edge was trading up by nearly 1% on the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex at noon on January 13, 2015.