Zomato acquires Italian online restaurant listing startup Cibando

Restaurant and event-listing site Zomato.com, owned and operated by Gurgaon-based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd, has acquired Italy-based web and mobile restaurant search services startup Cibando Ltd. for an undisclosed sum.

The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of next week. Post acquisition, Cibando will be integrated with Zomato and the entire Cibando team will join the firm.

Zomato said in a statement that it is planning to invest $6 million in Italy over the next two years to grow its team and business.

"Cibando is one of the largest restaurant search services in Italy. Their existing traffic and user base will give us a great start as we launch Zomato in the country," said Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato.

"Our immediate focus will be to integrate Cibando into Zomato, and build the most comprehensive restaurant search service for the Italian market. We will also scale up our teams in Rome and Milan to 30-40 full-time employees over the next three months." Goyal added.

Founded in 2010 by Guk Kim, Cibando is a restaurant search services firm that provides users with professionally-generated content such as reviews and photos. It claims that it currently has 150,000 photos on its site taken by professional food photographers and over 7,000 reviews written by its editors. At present, around 82,000 restaurants are listed on Cibando across various cities in Italy.

"Zomato has been expanding at a rapid pace, and we're excited about being part of that journey. Together, we will be able to offer detailed information for even more restaurants to our users in Italy and beyond, while also helping restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers effectively," said Kim.

Zomato was founded in 2008 by IIT Delhi alumni and ex-Bain employees Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. An online and mobile restaurant discovery service, Zomato provides information such as menus, directions, contact details, pictures and user reviews for over 310,000 restaurants. Zomato claims that it sees around 35 million visits per month across its website and mobile app.

The firm is present in over 100 cities across 20 countries, including India, the UK, the Czech Republic, the UAE, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Qatar.

The company currently employs 900 people. Till date, Zomato has raised more than $113 million, over multiple rounds of funding from investors including Vy Capital, Info Edge and Sequoia Capital.

Zomato has been actively expanding overseas both organically and through M&As. It had recently acquired four companies, including MenuMania in New Zealand; Lunchtime in the Czech Republic; Obedovat in Slovakia; and Gastronauci in Poland.

Last month, Zomato had introduced contextual-based advertisements on its mobile app.