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India's rapidly growing Internet- and
mobile-based companies have attracted billions of dollars in
funding in the last couple of years from foreign investors
including Japan's SoftBank Corp and Temasek Holdings Pvt Ltd.
Some of the technology startups have used the private equity
investments to acquire local peers to boost presence in a market
that has the world's third-largest Internet user base, but
overseas acquisitions are rare.
The acquisition of Urbanspoon, which marks Zomato's entry into
the United States, Canada and Australia, will result in its
presence in 22 countries, covering more than one million
restaurants, Zomato said.
Seattle-based Urbanspoon, which was previously owned by media
mogul Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, competes with Yelp
Inc, a popular website that lets users review and rate
restaurants and other services.
"It's an all cash deal. We pretty much had to spend all our last
round of funding on this and it's sort of a big deal for us,"
Zomato Chief Executive Deepinder Goyal told Reuters in a phone
interview.
Zomato, backed by private equity investors including Sequoia
Capital and India's Info Edge India Ltd, is talking to existing
as well as new investors to raise around $100 million in the
next 30 days, he said. It raised $60 million in November led by
Info Edge and Vy Capital, with participation from Sequoia
Capital.
The startup is likely to be valued at about $1 billion after
completing the fresh round of investment, Goyal said. Founded in
2008, Zomato is currently valued at around $660 million.
(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Mumbai; Editing by
Gopakumar Warrier)
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