Zomato eyes $25 million in revenues from subscription programme

Online restaurant discovery platform Zomato anticipates that its subscription programme, Zomato Gold, will fetch revenues of $20-25 million by the end of 2019 as it expands the offering to 23 cities globally.

Zomato’s chief operating officer Gaurav Gupta said in a blog post that after launching in India two years ago, Zomato Gold was extended to 11 Indian cities as well as Jakarta and Manila. He separately revealed the estimated revenue figures to The Economic Times.

Zomato Gold subscriptions enable users to avail of discounts while dining at select restaurants.

Gupta further said that Zomato Gold had accounted for 12% of the company’s revenues in the financial year 2017-18. The number of subscriptions stood at 700,000 at the time.

Zomato’s valuation adviser Resurgent India recently said that the company will likely turn profitable by 2021 though its losses are expected to widen seven-fold for the financial year 2018-19 at Rs 766 crore from Rs 106 crore in 2017-18. It had clocked consolidated net sales of Rs 466 crore in 2017-18.

Earlier this month, Zomato raised Rs 284.4 crore ($40 million) from US-based equity firm Glade Brook Capital. TechCircle had previously reported that Zomato was looking to secure $1 billion in fresh funding in a round that would likely be led by existing investor Ant Financial.

The company is also reportedly in advanced talks to sell its UAE business to Delivery Hero for $200-250 million in a bid to get additional capital.

Rival food technology platform Swiggy raised $1 billion two months ago in a round led by South African technology conglomerate Naspers.