Zomato Valuation Increased To $1.4 Billion By Nomura

Restaurant discovery and online food ordering platform Zomato Media Pvt., Ltd., was valued at $ 1.4 billion by equity research firm Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt., Ltd. The restaurant discovery platform is currently in talks with Chinese payments firm Ant Financial Services Group to raise $ 100 – $ 200 million.

The valuation was hiked from $ 1 billion to $ 1.4 billion by the equity research firm based on the last fund exercise taken up by the company in September 2015. According to Nomura’s report, Zomato’s revenues could grow 6.5 times to more than $300 million between the financial year 2017 to 2022. Nomura analysts Ashwin Mehta and Rishit Parikh, also suggested Zomato might be the only globally scalable Indian player with the potential to target expansion across the entire restaurant value chain while demonstrating growth with low customer acquisition costs.

As per several media reports, the restaurant discovery platform is likely to be valued at $ 800 to $ 900 million in its new fundraising round with Alibaba Group’s financial arm Ant Financial. In response to the hike in valuation, a Zomato spokesperson said, “We feel happy to see our work being recognized and validated by a renowned name like Nomura.” The valuation of the company was questioned last year when market participants argued that competitive pressure and high cash burn did not support its high valuation. The company disputed their valuation of $ 500 million by HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt., Ltd., in May 2016, citing the company had plenty of cash “and its unit economics are really good.” The company claimed their sales had doubled over the past nine months and cash burn was down 70% from its peak.

Zomato’s sales increased by 80% to $ 49 million in the financial year 2016 – 2017 as a result of growth in the advertising and food delivery business. Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008, the platform currently operates in 24 countries including Australia and United States.

Watch the inspirational journey of Zomato and its founder Deepinder Goya here –