After reports that HSBC had slashed Zomato’s valuation by 50%, valuing it at just $500 million, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal wasted no time in clearing the air. In an email sent this morning to Zomato’s global employees, Goyal talks about Zomato’s numbers, points out how HSBC’s report might have overlooked certain aspects, and urges his team to “get back to work.”
It’s the season of markdowns. After Flipkart has seen its valuation being marked down by as many as 4 separate investors, HSBC has valued Zomato at about $500 million, a full $500 million short of the $1 billion valuation at which it had raised funds last year.
Zomato is on course to double its revenue in the fiscal year ending March 31st. The company is also all set to become break even at the operational level – meaning it won’t make losses anymore on individual orders – by mid 2016. Zomato will be the first of the Indian unicorns to reach the milestone.
After grocery delivery service Grofers had withdrawn its operations from 9 Tier 2 cities last month, Zomato has shut down its food ordering service in Lucknow, Kochi, Indore, and Coimbatore.
While the unique initiative off OddEVen vehicles on Delhi roads has met with mixed reactions on the ground, and has become a butt of a gamut of social media jokes and commentary, operationally this has helped many urban commute startups and carpooling initiatives. In the midst of the OddEven Hoopla, Indian startups have found a way to leverage this buzz for some interesting marketing initiatives. Couple with some sense of humour, and a quick action, Zomato and Freecharge have both put an OddEven spin on their social media.
Zomato saw its food ordering service Zomato Order crash on New Years Eve. Zomato was inundated with orders from hungry revelers on 31st December, seeing record levels of orders on the site.
Zomato had revealed the results of its porn marketing campaign with much fanfare. The company had decided to advertise on porn websites to promote its night time deliveries. And the campaign, however unconventional, had worked. Zomato had managed to draw people to its site at record low costs. It had seemed like a perfect startup hack – an insight into consumer behaviour that had demonstrable results. Yet Zomato’s taken the campaign down a day after it was announced.
India’s food tech companies aren’t exactly known for their great customer service. The Facebook pages of Foodpanda, Swiggy and the like are littered with rants from irate customers who’ve been left hungry when their orders haven’t been processed as they’d have liked. The latest entrant in the food ordering game though is trying to do things differently. When a Zomato customer complained on twitter that he hadn’t received an order, he was in for a surprise.
In the days of a spurt of online startups with few distinguishable features, and insta-ROI driven marketing strategy, the tried and tested methods…