New Delhi : Online restaurant search service major Zomato has acquired Turkey’s Mekanist for an undisclosed amount. This is the seventh acquisition by Zomato in the last six months.
With the acquisition of Mekanist, Zomato will expand into various cities in Turkey and its coverage will increase from about 27,500 restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to more than 50,000 restaurants across Turkey.
Zomato, which is now valued at about $ 660 million, forayed in Turkey in November 2013, making its website and apps available to users in Turkish and English. The integrated product will be rolled out over the next few months, and will be available to users and business owners in both Turkish and English. After the integration, Zomato will cover over 75,000 restaurants in Turkey, serving users over 3 million times a month.
At present, Zomato has a team of 27 people in Turkey, most of whom are based out of the local headquarters in Istanbul.
Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato , said, “Mekanist has established itself as one of the heavyweights in the online restaurant search and discovery space in Turkey. We’re excited to be joining forces with them as we continue to grow in one of our most important markets. Mekanist is one of the first and most successful tech startups to emerge from the Turkish startup ecosystem, and we’re excited about them becoming a part of Zomato.”
Mekanist has over 190,000 listed establishments such as the most popular restaurants, cafes, and bars, along with over 500,000 reviews from its 1.5 million strong signed-up user base on web and mobile.
The two teams will be working closely over the coming months to integrate Mekanist into Zomato. All of Mekanist’s traffic and restaurant-related content will move to Zomato, and Mekanist app users will be able to use the Zomato app. The acquisition also has a lot to offer to restaurant businesses. They will now be able to benefit from Zomato’s hyperlocal advertising model, and target customers searching for restaurants in and around their location. The Zomato for Business app suite will also help restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers like never before.
