In 2010, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, founders of FoodieBay, over lunch at a cafe in Ambience Mall in Gurgaon decided to rebrand the food directory app to Zomato, the e-commerce food aggregator and delivery platform as we know it today. Nearly a decade later, over lunch, Goyal and CFO Akshant Goyal decided to go public.

“Our business had shrunk meaningfully in the COVID times, and it was still loss-making and fundraising from private markets was not an option at that time, because no one knew how the world and our business would come out of the pandemic,” Akshant Goyal told CNBC-TV18 Managing Editor Shereen Bhan. “Over a lunch break, I remember us talking about, Okay, should we go public?”

Goyal was part of the panel on Navigating Public Markets With Profitability & Growth.

Acknowledging that going public was not an easy choice, Goyal noted the uncertainty surrounding their decision, given that no Indian company with Zomato’s loss-making profile had ever raised money from public markets before. Yet, with limited alternatives and the company’s need for capital, they began the process.

By the time Zomato was ready to go public, the business had rebounded, and they managed to raise significant private capital before the IPO, which boosted their confidence. The food delivery giant made a stellar debut on the bourses on July 23, 2021, listing at ₹116 apiece—a 52.63% premium.

The timing of Zomato’s IPO became a pivotal point in India’s tech-driven market. Goyal reflected that the move helped inject new energy into the company. He explained, “There is no one good reason to go public. It could also be, just like it unlocks energy in the organisation, that could be a reason to go public as well.”

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