Edinburgh and Glasgow have some notable restaurants. The question for all to many people is how to identify those that are genuinely worth patronising. A company founded just five years ago in India could well provide the solution to that dilemma.
Zomato is an international website aimed not just at the “foodie” but at anyone who is looking for a decent place to eat.
This week, the two largest Scottish cities have been added to its extensive portfolio of 35 cities across 11 countries. Its talent scouts have already been trawling the streets and – in Edinburgh at least – have identified 1,500 restaurants and bars which will now be named in its directory.
Zomato started as an idea in a consultancy based in Delhi. Some of the employees had difficulty in identifying places to eat locally. They went out scouring the district, at first simply identifying and copying menus in the restaurants which attracted them. But it quickly expanded from that to the point where they started to produce reviews on the restaurants they visited.
Some of them realised that they’d stumbled across what could become a service which was relevant to many more people than just their colleagues. They spread their attention at first across India before trying out the concept in the UAE. There, it was quickly adopted and has become the largest source of restaurant information in that part of the Middle East.
The company decided that the UK was a suitable target for its expansion. It moved into London in January 2013, expanding first to Birmingham and Manchester before its decision to come North into Scotland. In that short time it’s identified more than 25,000 restaurants in the UK and is able to provide information about them – not just menus but directions, contact details, pictures and user reviews.
The model has been so successful that the company has been able to raise substantial sums of money in several rounds of funding. The latest of these, announced this week, will add US$37 million to its funds. This will allow the company to continue its growth by expanding into additional countries around the world.
Promod Rao
UK CEO, Zomato
As its founder, Deepinder Goyal, explained, “this is an exciting place for us. We believe that we can disrupt restaurant search with rich content driven model. This financing will help us develop a product that will change the way people look for restaurant recommendations around them.”
The company’s UK chief executive. Pramod Rao, told the Caledonian Mercury that Scotland was “the obvious choice to expand into in the UK. Scotland is one of the focus areas in the UK and we are planning to invest over half £1 million in the coming year, and bring seven or eight people into the Zomato fold locally over the next quarter to strengthen our presence.”
We’re delighted that the Caledonian Mercury and Zomato will be supporting each other over the coming months as a reference to support the Food & Drink sector in Scotland.