 "Zomato's buying spree continues; buys Lunchtime, Obedovat in Europe for $ 3.25 mn")
Continuing its buying spree, Zomato, the restaurant discovery service, has acquired Lunchtime.cz and Obedovat.sk, the Czech Republic’s and Slovakia’s popular restaurant guides, respectively, for a combined amount of $3.25 million in order to establish its presence in Central and Eastern Europe.
The company will infuse another $2.5 million into its operations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia over the next couple of years.
This is Zomato’s third acquisition and takes the company’s presence to 15 countries, from 13 earlier.
The acquisition is also part of the company’s strategy toaggressively expandits global presence. Zomato boughtMenuMania, the leading restaurant discovery service in New Zealand, in July
Zomato is also looking to enter the Canadian market, after which it plans to focus on North America, Vietnam, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Ireland.
Lunchtime was founded in 2008 by Igor Treslin and Adam Kurzok whileObedovat, the leading restaurant search service in Slovakia, was founded in 2004 by Creative Web Group. The transaction for Obedovat. is expected to be completed by September end.
Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Zomato, said, “Both Lunchtime and Obedovat have strong business models that cater to the local market needs of discovery of lunch menus. Together, Zomato, Lunchtime, and Obedovat will be able to build the largest resource of restaurant information in the Czech Republic and Slovakia,” said Deepinder Goyal, foudner and CEO of Zomato.