Chinese travel services provider Ctrip likely to join Zomato's financing round, may invest around $100 million

Mumbai: Chinese travel services provider Ctrip is likely to join food ordering app Zomato's financing round and may invest around $100 million, a media report said.Zomato's latest financing round, which could go up to $400 million (Rs 2,800 crore) will value the Gurgaon-based firm at $1.8-2 billion, The Times of India cited people familiar with the development as saying.The newspaper report added that Ctrip will be joined by Zomato’s existing backer Ant Financial and a couple of new financial investors. Ant Financial is an affiliate company of Alibaba Group.Ctrip is an investor in online travel company MakeMyTrip. In February this year, Zomato had raised $200 million from Ant Financials.Gurgaon-based Zomato has a presence in tier II cities. In August, Zomato announced its expansion of operations to seven more cities including Dehradun, Agra, Patna, Mysore, Ranchi, Raipur and Aurangabad.[caption id="attachment_3401392" align="alignleft" width="380"]

Representational image. Reuters[/caption]"We're heads down focused on growing this business and are excited to bring Zomato's food delivery services to these cities. India is our largest focus market and growth in tier II and tier III cities has been really encouraging for us," Zomato CEO Mohit Gupta had said."We want to continue to reach out to more users in India, and make their interactions with restaurant much more seamless as compared to what they are right now," added Gupta.Earlier, Zomato launched its platform across 25 new cities in India, including Trivandrum, Vijayawada, Raipur, Madurai, Jodhpur, Thrissur, Ajmer amongst others."India continues to be our highest priority market and we will continue to expand and build further depth within the country. We are doing everything to take Zomato to more cities - to enable the growth of the restaurant industry and help our audience make better food choices," said Oytun Calapover, Global Head - Listings Business, Zomato had said.Zomato's revenue rose by 45 percent to $74 million (around Rs 481 crore) in 2017-18. As of 31 March 2018, Zomato had over 2.8 lakh active user subscribers across its two subscription programs Zomato Gold and Zomato Treats.Zomato launched its online ordering and food delivery services in May 2015. Globally, Zomato is present in 24 countries and serves more than 50 million users every month.With inputs from agencies