Zomato launches in Canada

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Restaurant search and discovery service Zomato has finally entered the North American market by launching in Toronto.

The company claims that it currently provides information for over 11,000 restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area and plans to expand to other cities in Canada including Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary over the next few months. Zomato founder & CEO Deepinder Goyal mentions that they have earmarked $10 million for expansion in Canada.

Canada is a critical market for Zomato because it will be competing against its biggest competitor Yelp in a market where the latter is already dominant. Earlier this year, Yelp also turned profitable for the first time. This could also act as a testing ground for Zomato before making a foray into the United States.

Global expansion

Zomato has been on an expansion mode for the past year or so, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. Last month, Zomato had acquired restaurant search service Gastronauci to enter Poland.

In August, it had acquired Czech Republic’s restaurant guide Lunchtime.cz and Slovakia’s restaurant guide Obedovat.sk to enter the respective markets. In the same month, Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah had told Livemint that the company plans to enter 10 new markets over the next five-six months through organic and inorganic expansion. This included Canada, Ireland, Poland, Malaysia, Vietnam, Jordan, Oman and Colombia.

Before the acquisitions in Europe, Zomato had acquired New Zealand-based restaurant search service MenuMania in July to expand its presence in the country.

Zomato had also expanded its South American presence by launching in Chile in July this year. The company had first forayed into South America by launching in Brazil in November 2013.

Zomato began its international operations in Dubai, UAE and claims to provide detailed information for over 270,000 restaurants across 17 countries including India.

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Zomato launches in Canada