Zomato might be getting hammered at the stock markets, but the company seems to be hinting it’s not going anywhere — and it’s doing so with a name change.
Zomato has decided to rename its group company name to “Eternal”. “Now that the Zomato/Blinkit deal is approved, we have three companies – Zomato, Blinkit, and Hyperpure – in the order of size of business/ impact. In addition to these three, we also have Feeding India,” Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal in an internal announcement. “Starting today, we are going to call this larger organisation “Eternal”. The word Eternal is a mission statement in itself. Eternal means forever, something that will last for more than just a few lifetimes. Boundless, timeless, undying, endless, permanent – are some of the other words that can be used to describe Eternal,” he added.
“Eternal will be an internal name for now – you should start seeing the Eternal logo at a few places in our new office. As well as some t-shirts,” he added. ET Now shared a picture of what the Eternal logo would look like. The logo says “Eternal” in black text on a white background, and has 4 intertwined circles alongside.
Zomato has some precedent in deciding to rename its parent company. A few years ago, Google had decided to name its parent company “Alphabet”, which would house its various divisions, while more recently, Facebook had decided to rename itself to Meta, and have its different products under Meta’s broad umbrella. Zomato now has several businesses, right from its restaurant menu and review platform, to its online ordering app, to loyalty programs like Zomato Pro, to grocery delivery service Blinkit, to restaurant ingredient provider Hyperpure, and presumably wanted to create an umbrella brand of its own to house these diverse interests.
But Zomato isn’t only renaming its parent company — it’s also moving to a structure where it will have multiple CEOs running these businesses. “We are transitioning from a company where I was the CEO to a place where we will have multiple CEOs running each of our businesses (e.g. Zomato, Blinkit, Hyperpure, Feeding India), all acting as peers to each other, and working as a super-team with each other towards building a single large and seamless organisation,” Deepinder Goyal announced.
Zomato has previously had some unconventional approaches to job titles — it routinely elevated long-standing executives to the title “co-founder”, and now will have several “CEO”s running the company. Also, Zomato has always been known for its quirky advertising, so a new name seems par for the course.
But what remains to be seen is whether investors will be impressed with several CEOs, or names which mean “boundless, timeless, undying, endless and permanent” — Zomato’s stock has been pummeled in recent months, and currently trades at nearly half its IPO price and 75% below the all-time high it had made last year. Zomato appears to be creating some buzz with its recent moves, but the Dalal Street might need to see some cold hard data before it can reverse its mind on its floundering stock.