Zomato, the Indian-headquartered global food delivery and rating platforms, is on track to break into the black this year thanks to strong growth in tier-2 Indian cities, says a senior executive of the firm.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Gaurav Gupta, co-founder and chief operating officer of Zomato, said the food delivery platform is likely to break even in the next six to 12 months.
“Right now, for [the] food delivery business we are investing a lot of money. Over time, we would like to see more and more orders coming,” he told FinanceAsia. “As your order intensity goes up, the cost of delivery comes down. We are very focused on that.”
While declining to specify when exactly, Gupta said Zomato would likely pursue another fundraising round, having raised $64 million in January from Shunwei Capital, Delivery Hero and Saturn Shine.
The Indian unicorn has so far attracted a total of $755 million of investment over 13 funding rounds and used the money to fund its breakneck expansion, according to TechCrunch.
From just 30 early last year, Zomato now has a presence in 187 Indian cities and its orders, both per restaurant and per city, are higher compared with Chinese counterparts such as Meituan Dianping, Gupta said.
Beyond India, it is also looking to expand in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, Gupta said. The company already operates in 24 countries.
The India-based platform registered 21 million monthly food orders in October of a user base of 2.4 million. But the platform naturally wants much more given the massive potential scale of its home market, which remains hugely underserved.
“The market is too large,” he added and said that instead of competition, Zomato is just focusing on making a bigger pie in the food ordering industry.
Gupta, who was attending the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference, said Zomato hopes to grow from $1 billion valuation company to a $1 billion-revenue company in the future and, ultimately, a $1-billion profit company ultimately.
