Zomato sells UAE biz to Delivery Hero for $172m, nabs $105m in funding
Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd, which operates online food delivery and restaurant discovery platform Zomato, has sold its food delivery business in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Berlin-based Delivery Hero, for about $172 million, per an announcement.
In addition, Zomato has concluded its ongoing funding round with an additional second tranche of about $105 million, its largest shareholder Info Edge (India) Ltd said in a BSE filing on Monday. The new investors in this round include Delivery Hero and Glade Brook Capital.
Including the $210 million fund raise intimated in October 2018, the total amount of equity capital raised in this round of financing amounts to about $315 million, it added.
In a separate statement, Delivery Hero said it will participate in Zomato’s latest funding round by investing $50 million into Zomato’s global business, and be among the company’s top ten shareholders. Further, Zomato and Delivery Hero will then enter services agreements under which Zomato will continue to run the business on its own platform.
elivery Hero has routed the acquisition through its wholly owned subsidiary Talabat Middle East Internet Services Company LLC.
Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, said, “Zomato has built a successful food delivery business in the UAE and India on the back of its restaurant search and discovery app and website. The acquisition will allow us to further improve our service to customers in the UAE. We are also excited to become a shareholder in Zomato’s rapid food delivery growth story in India and share our learnings.”
Zomato raised $210 million from existing Chinese investor Ant Financial in October last year. The transaction saw the parent company Info Edge’s shareholding in Zomato come down to about 27.68 per cent on a fully converted and diluted basis from 30.91 per cent.
Upon closing of the latest fundraising, Info Edge’s shareholding in Zomato will further dilute to 26.38 per cent.
Prior to that in February last year, Zomato had raised $200 million in a funding round led by China’s Ant Financial. The Chinese investor is reported to be the largest shareholder in the Indian company with a 28 per cent stake.
Zomato has till date raised a total of $755.6 million across 13 funding rounds, according to Crunchbase.
Delivery Hero is backed by South African media and internet conglomerate Naspers, which is also the biggest investor in Zomato’s arch-rival Swiggy. It last invested $660 million in Bengaluru-headquartered Swiggy, which was part of a larger $1-billion equity financing round in December last year.
Meanwhile, the acquisition of Zomato’s UAE business will add 1.2 million monthly orders and $2 million monthly revenue to Delivery Hero’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) business and will strengthen its leadership position in the UAE, the company said. The acquisition will be fully funded by an acquisition facility, it added.
Zomato continues to own and run its other businesses such as ad sales, gold etc. in the country, Info Edge said.
Delivery Hero claims to have a presence in 41 countries in Europe, the MENA, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. It also operates its own delivery service primarily in over 200 cities around the world. The company has an employee base of over 21,000.