Online food ordering company Zomato, which is preparing itself for an IPO in the first half of 2021, has reported a staggering 160.6 per cent jump in its losses for the financial year (FY) 2019-20 while its revenues increased 98 per cent from the preceding FY. Swiggy’s arch-rival Zomato, led by Deepinder Goyal, saw losses mounting from Rs 940 crore in FY19 to Rs 2,451 crore amid 36.7 per cent increase in expenses from Rs 3,383 crore to Rs 4,627 crore during the said period, according to the regulatory filings sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. On the other hand, the company, backed by Alibaba’s Ant Financial, Tiger Global, and others, managed to push its revenues up from Rs 1,255 crore in FY19 to Rs 2,485 crore in FY20.

Comments from Zomato on FY20 performance will be updated here as and when shared.

Zomato in its filing said that while its other businesses are gaining traction, the primary revenue sources for it are ad sales, online ordering, and Zomato Gold business segments. It added that the unit economics in online ordering improved significantly with increased revenue, lower logistics cost, and user discounts. Further its “huge focus on efficiencies and bringing down costs helped bring down the overall burn rate significantly.” During FY20, Zomato had also acquired Uber Eats to “become the market leaders in the delivery business.”

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Covid-19, which hit the online food delivery segment in March 2020 due to the lockdown, had brought Zomato’s order volumes down significantly and also caused a huge reduction of dine out revenue, according to the company. Since then, Zomato had introduced services such as contactless dining and delivery takeaway products in certain geographies outside of India to address the Covid-related losses. Moreover, its food@work business was also impacted due to Covid-19, as a large number of working people started working from home. Zomato’s authorised share capital was increased from Rs 272,57,66,341 (Rs 272.57 crore) to Rs 422,51,90,341 (Rs 422.51 crore) during FY20, the filing noted. It had also launched Zomato Culinary Services on June 21, 2019, which was renamed to Zomato Local Services with effect from March 19, 2020.

The food delivery company Zomato has closed its massive $660 million funding round in December 2020 even as it is in the process of closing a $140 million secondary transaction, Goyal had said in a Twitter thread. The round had valued the company at a post-money valuation of $3.9 billion. Zomato had claimed close to 60 per cent higher gross merchandise value (GMV) this New Year’s Eve from the year-ago period to Rs 75 crore. It peaked to orders per minute (OPM) rate of 4,254 on Thursday with around 1 lakh delivery personnel processing those orders.