Restaurant and event-listing site Zomato.com, owned and operated by Gurgaon-based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd, has acquired US-based restaurant table reservation service NexTable for an undisclosed amount in a cash and stock deal and said it plans to rebrand it to "Zomato Book" and launch operations in India, UAE and Australia soon.
The entire team from NexTable, including founders TC DeSilva and Robert Tyree, is expected to move to Zomato.
This comes as its second acquisition in the US and another purchase would add to its revenue stream. The firm currently draws bulk of its business from ads from restaurants and is looking at new ways to generate revenues starting with fee from online food ordering, POS system for restaurants, cash-less payments after meals at restaurants and table reservation service.
Zomato recently introduced its online ordering service in a few markets and with Zomato Book it would add another layer of service between restaurants and users.
"Zomato has the funding it needs to scale its sales team, and also its consumer presence will help acquire more customers," TC DeSilva, co-founder NexTable, said.
This deal comes just two weeks after Zomato raised $50 million more from its existing investors.
Previously it had raised $60 million at a post-money valuation of $660 million last November. In January, it used much of it to buy UrbanSpoon in the US in its biggest ever buy. The deal gave it a large presence in the US and other markets.
The firm has continued to buy firms after that too.
Last week, it acquired MapleGraph Solutions Pvt Ltd, which operated a point-of-sales business, in its first acquisition outside its core business of restaurant listings and reviews. Zomato is now launching its own version of the product under Zomato Base which would allow restaurants manage inventory and payments as well as provide real time analytics and more.
Zomato Base offers inventory and recipe management, analyses sales data to track restaurant's performance, generates electronic receipts as well as does payment gateway integration and menu management.
Founded in 2008 by IIT Delhi alumni and ex-Bain employees Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, the firm has acquired as many as nine firms (including NexTable) in the last one year.
It has raised more than $163 million over multiple rounds of funding from investors, including Info Edge, Sequoia Capitaland Vy Capital.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
