Online food delivery aggregator Zomato Ltd has launched a new platform called ‘Zomato Wings,’ in a bid to enable investors to connect with restaurants, according to a company’s blog.
The platform will enable venture capital firms, angel investors, family offices, among others that are looking to make private investments in restaurants and cloud-kitchens to directly connect with restaurants and cloud-kitchens that are in search of investors, the company said.
“Just like ambitious restaurant entrepreneurs look for investors, investors also hunt for brands and teams that have the potential to become the next big chain. We at Zomato have seen the growth story of such restaurants first hand,” the blog post by founder, chief executive officer, Deepinder Goyal said.
Zomato will not be investing in the brands or restaurants, the company said, as it does not want to compete with restaurants, and wants to remain a fair and neutral platform for all restaurants, it said.
Zomato’s role would be limited to being a facilitator of fundraising for restaurants and it will enable restaurants in pitching themselves to the right investors, the company said. The company is eyeing to facilitate at least 100 deals in the next three years between investors and restaurant brands.
"Ideally, capital should seamlessly follow any great restaurant, but in reality, it is not easy for restaurants in India to raise funding through growth-focused equity investors," read the blog post. Zomato said that in the last three years, only about 25 restaurants and cloud-kitchens have Series A or larger equity funding rounds, citing data from Tracxn.
Zomato, which got listed earlier this year as India’s first tech unicorn, reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 430 crore, earlier this month. The Ant Group-backed company’s initial public offering (IPO) had got an overwhelming response from anchor investors. Tiger Global Management, Bailley Glifford Pacific Fund, and Morgan Stanley Investment Funds invested about Rs 100 crore each in the company.
Earlier this month, it signed definitive agreements to invest $75 million for an 8% stake in Bigfoot Retail Solutions Pvt Ltd., which operates business-to-business (B2B) logistics technology player Shiprocket. The investment is a part of Shiprocket’s $185 million round.
Zomato has also decided to invest $50 million in Samast Technologies Pvt Ltd., which operates hyperlocal discovery platform magicpin. Additionally, Zomato has divested sports discovery startup Fitso to fitness major Curefit for $50 million, in return for an active stake in the latter. The company also said that it is in the process divesting or shutting down its other non-core businesses.
The company was founded by Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Singh Goyal in 2008 as India’s multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery tech company. It operates in about 525 cities across India and partners with almost 390,000 restaurants.
