Zomato buys US-based food portal Urbanspoon for $60 million

New Delhi, Jan 13:In what could be understood as major boost for Indian start-ups, country's leading online restaurant guide Zomato has acquired US-based food portal Urbanspoon in a deal of nearly $60 million (Rs 370 crore).

Experts feel that this deal will bring Zomato in direct competition with Yelp, which is a California-based service provider that helps people locate business, reviews, etc.

Zomato is already popular in as many as 20 countries. Its acquisition of Urbanspoon will help company enter into the US and Australian market. After acquiring

, Zomato will now be present in 22 countries.

Zomato had last year acquired dominant restaurant search players in countries such as New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy.

The deal was finalised with digital media company InterActive Corp which owns Urbanspoon, last week, by Deepinder Goyal, the chief executive of Zomato.

According to Pankaj Chaddah, cofounder of Zomato, "Zomato's traffic will more than double to more than 80 million visitors, probably making us the largest restaurant (only) search company in the world."

As per Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, "Our US entry has been in the cards for a while now, and we're delighted to be doing so by welcoming Urbanspoon into Zomato. They have a strong presence in the US and the UK, and they also dominate restaurant search in Australia and Canada. Urbanspoon has a huge following, and is home to legions of people who are as passionate about food as we are. We will soon be integrating the two products to bring the best of both products to our users in the United States as well as the rest of the world."

OneIndia News