It's never excess fund, there's always room to raise more: Pankaj Chaddah

Interview with Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer, Zomato.Com

 

Zomato.Com, the Gurgaon-based online restaurant search and discovery service, closed its ninth acquisition (of NexTable) on Wednesday. Pankaj Chaddah, co-founder and chief of operations, tells Digbijay Mishra they're looking at further inorganic growth, across the world. The company, valued at $670 million, has also announced a global tie-up with San Francisco-based Uber to offer rides to its customers while opting for dining via Zomato. Edited excerpts:

What is the rationale in the global tie-up with Uber?

We want to offer a seamless experience to our consumers. We have seen that people dining out are many a time confused about the transportation to reach a restaurant, and often book cabs, especially outside India. Uber being a global brand, we thought it would be best to tie up with them.

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What is the revenue share agreement?

We are not doing it for revenues. At this stage, there is no revenue from this collaboration but we might look at that after a certain point of time, as things progress and results are visible.

You recently closed nine mergers and acquisitions. Is there still room for inorganic appetite?

We are looking at existing markets where we already have a presence. Deepinder (Goyal, co-founder and chief executive) has also talked about it. There are always interesting opportunities in the market and we are looking at these, as we are becoming more than only a restaurant review platform.

You recently raised fresh cash. How are you going to spend it, given that you are entering new verticals?

We now have four verticals, so there are enough avenues to spend the money. Food ordering is one of the major ones.

Will you raise fresh cash in the coming months?

We are adequately capitalised but there is always room to raise fresh funds. There's nothing as excess funds. I won’t be able to share further details on it but that is something we keep looking at.

A tie-up like Uber; has this been done globally by your competitors?

Yes. In London, 90 per cent of people opt for cabs while dining out. The numbers for India would be clearer once we run with the programme for a few weeks. We are initially rolling it out in five cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad, based on the traffic we have seen so far.

What drives your acquisition decisions?

There are multiple things we look at. First, the acquisition must give entry to a new market. And, the product should be good and add new value to our bouquet.