Restaurant database Zomato has closed its fifth round of funding with new investors on board.
Zomato is a restaurant review service providing information on food outlets across the globe.
The new $37 million funding round comes from Sequoia Capital and existing investor Info Edge.
They’ll use the investment expand into more countries over the next two years.
It brings the total amount of investment to the company, which was only founded 5 years ago, to an incredible $53 million.
A flooded market
When asked by Tech City News what made Zomato any different from the flooded restaurant review market, founder Pankaj Chaddah said it was down to their content.
“Zomato is driven more so by us than the user. Our staff individually check restaraunts, its services and provide maps and photos of the menus.”
“The restaurant industry has a particularly high turnover, so we walk the city every 3 months to keep the information up to date.”
Reviews and recommendations of restaurants are still left to the individual users.
International growth
The company, based in New Delhi, India, operates in 35 cities over 11 different countries.
It launched in Edinburgh and Glasgow today as well as Sao Paulo, Brazil and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Zomato launched in London back in January of this year, has 25,000 restaurants listed across the UK with 800,000 monthly visits to the site.
London HQ
Mr Chaddah says the company has big plans for its London based office.
“We have a small team in the office, only 25-30 people to cover the UK”.
“In the next 18 months, it will become our European headquarters as we try to enter the Continental Europe market”
They also have plans to increase staff numbers to 150 people in the coming months.
When asked whether the whole company would ever be based in London, Mr Chaddah insisted it would stay in New Delhi.