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Leading online restaurant search service Zomato has acquired Italian search service Cibando, the company announced on Friday.
Cibando will be integrated with Zomato, and over the next few months, users will be able to use Zomato for all major cities in Italy, the company said. Zomato declined to disclose the deal size.
About 82,000 restaurants are listed on Cibando across various cities. Zomato will invest $6 million in Italy over the next two years to grow the team and the business in the country. Zomato, which also has a mobile restaurant search app, provides information and reviews for about 300,000 restaurants across 20 countries.
“Cibando’s existing traffic and user base will give us a great start as we launch Zomato in the country,” Deepinder Goyal, founder and chief executive officer of Zomato, said, “I think we have a lot to learn from them about the local market.”
This is Zomato’s fifth acquisition in recent months. Zomato acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in the Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland recently.
“Our immediate focus will be on integrating Cibando into Zomato, and on building the most comprehensive restaurant search service for the Italian market. We will also scale up our teams in Rome and Milan to 30-40 full-time employees in the next three months,” Deepinder added. Zomato, across the world, gets about 35 million visits per month across its website and mobile apps.
