Deepinder Goyal’s stake in Zomato surpasses $1 B; joins billionaire club

Zomato’s founder and CEO, Deepinder Goyal, became a billionaire when the value of his shares in the foodtech company topped Rs 8,400 crore.

With this, Goyal becomes the latest in a line of businessmen who have achieved a comparable peak in terms of their startups’ growth and valuation, including Byju’s Reveendran, Nikhil and Nitin Kamath, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and Ritesh Agarwal.

Goyal held 36,94,71,500 shares, or 4.19% of Zomato, as of March 31, 2024. His personal stake has now exceeded $1 billion since the Info Edge-backed company recently reached an all-time high share price of about Rs 232.

At 11:27 AM IST on July 15, Zomato’s market capitalization was Rs 2,01,343 crore, or $24.25 billion. According to estimates from the media, Deepinder Goyal has 36,94,71,500 equity shares, valued at Rs 8,423 crore ($1.01 billion).

Additionally, the implementation of a new $458 million ESOP plan in 2024 was approved by shareholders for the food tech major. The company’s total ESOP value exceeded $800 million after implementing its new ESOP plan. Zomato appears to currently have the biggest ESOP pool among startups, second only to Flipkart. Paytm, Nykaa, Policybazaar, and Oyo had ESOP pools valued at nearly $1 billion in 2021.

But ever since, the value of Oyo and Paytm’s ESOP pools has plummeted due to a massive decline in their valuations.

Goyal is the newest member of the VC-backed billionaire club, despite the fact that the wealth of bootstrapped startup founders like the Kamath brothers and Sridhar Vembu is thought to surpass $1 billion.

Even after raising its platform fees to Rs 6 in Delhi and Bengaluru, Zomato’s success on the stock market has persisted.

In August of last year, the company launched a platform fee of Rs 2. It then raised it to Rs 5 in April and now charges Rs 6 per order as it attempts to increase margin.

In the two cities, Swiggy increased its platform fee to Rs 6.

Zomato’s revenue from operations increased 71% year over year to Rs 12,114 crore in FY24 from Rs 7,079 crore in FY22, demonstrating a strong growth in the company’s last fiscal year (FY24). Additionally, the company made Rs 351 crore in profits in FY24 compared to a loss of Rs 971 crore in FY23.