UKTI help Zomato soup up their pop-up menus
By Kealan Finnegan
UK Trade & Investment helped Indian start-up Zomato launch its first UK site with key introductions to professional services providers. In just over 18 months, it has attracted hundreds of thousands of users.
The idea for Zomato took shape in 2008 in India, when two Bain & Company consultants started uploading restaurant menus onto their office intranet to optimise their team’s lunch search efforts.
A hugely positive response, and continual requests for more menus led to the birth of Zomato: a website offering users a comprehensive, city-wide database of restaurants.
Five years later, Zomato lists 230,000 restaurants in 41 cities globally, and generates revenue through hyper-local restaurant advertising targeted to users based on their location.
In September 2012, Zomato expanded into Dubai, and as its reputation continued to grow, it began noticing tweets from Indian expats in London, speculating as to when it would enter the UK.
Zomato got in touch with the UKTI New Delhi team to explore the possibility, who sent the company detailed information about the UK’s restaurant sector, and introduced them to lawyers, accountants, immigration consultants and real estate agents.
“From the outset, UKTI made a concerted effort to get us the information we needed.” says Albinder Dhindsa, Head of International Operations, Zomato.
“Their introductions to lawyers, accountants and restaurant associations helped us take care of the practical side of setting up locally. In addition, they have an incredible amount of information available online for foreign companies looking to open in the UK.”
In January 2013, the company officially launched Zomato London with two employees. It now has almost 30 full-time employees and plans to treble its headcount by the end of 2015.es are just wonderful.”
Zomato London attracts over 800,000 unique visits per month and has over 21,000 restaurant listings in London, plus more than 5.000 listings in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham.
Its UK presence has given Zomato the opportunity to further research other European markets, leading to recent launches in Istanbul, Ankara and Lisbon, and the Czech Republic and Germany are scheduled for launches this summer.
“Our entry into the UK has been seamless, with thanks in part to UKTI,” says Albinder. “Over the coming months and years we look forward to working closely with them as we expand further around the UK, and into mainland Europe.”
