Zomato
Founders
Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah · Founded 2008 · HQ today: Gurugram, Haryana, India
Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. It is now led by Albinder Dhindsa.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah were consultants at Bain & Company in New Delhi. They noticed colleagues struggling to find takeaway menus and began putting menus online. In 2008 they launched Foodiebay as a restaurant menu directory. Info Edge became an early investor, and the site was renamed Zomato in 2010.
| Founder | Role at founding | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Deepinder Goyal | Founder; Vice Chairman of Eternal | — |
| Pankaj Chaddah | Co-founder | — |
IIT Delhi graduate and former Bain & Company consultant.
Deepinder Goyal co-founded Foodiebay, later Zomato, in 2008 and served as CEO until February 1, 2026. During that time he led the 2021 IPO, the Blinkit acquisition and the 2025 rename to Eternal. He is now Vice Chairman of Eternal. Deepinder Goyal was born in 1983.
Graduated from IIT Delhi and worked as a consultant at Bain & Company.
Pankaj Chaddah co-founded Zomato (originally Foodiebay) in 2008 with Deepinder Goyal. He led the company's massive early international expansion, launching the restaurant discovery platform across dozens of countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He managed core operations as the company pivoted into aggressive food delivery before stepping down from active management in 2018. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Albinder Dhindsa
Group Chief Executive Officer, Eternal
As the founder and CEO of Blinkit (acquired by Zomato for $568 million in 2022), he successfully transformed Zomato's struggling grocery delivery ambitions into its fastest-growing and most promising revenue engine.
Deepinder Goyal
Founder and Group CEO (now Vice Chairman)
Led the company from its founding until he stepped down as Group CEO on February 1, 2026. He is now Vice Chairman.
Zomato was co-founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, two IIT Delhi graduates who worked together as management consultants at Bain & Company in New Delhi.
Colleagues at Bain & Company stood in long lines to view paper restaurant menus in the cafeteria; Goyal and Chaddah scanned menus and uploaded them to the office intranet, sparking viral demand.
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge (Naukri.com), discovered Foodiebay online in 2010 and invested $1 million in seed capital, remaining a supportive long-term board backer through the IPO.
Pankaj Chaddah stepped down from Zomato in March 2018 after a decade of building its operations, later founding preventive mental health and wellness platform Shyft (formerly Mindhouse).
Gunjan Patidar joined as original Chief Technology Officer building the core code, and Gaurav Gupta served as Chief Operating Officer and was elevated to co-founder before departing in 2021.
Goyal and Chaddah personally funded website server costs from their Bain salaries, spending weekends gathering menus from restaurants across Delhi NCR and uploading them manually.
The founders have been honored on Fortune India's 40 Under 40, Forbes Asia lists, and recognized by the Indian startup ecosystem for creating the country's first successful tech IPO.
The founders instituted a high-accountability meritocracy with open office layouts, candid feedback loops, and an obsession with user interface design and customer satisfaction.
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