Zomato acquires Turkey's restaurant search service Mekanist

Online restaurant search platform Zomato has acquired Turkey's popular eatery search service Mekanist, a company statement said Thursday.

Zomato's restaurant coverage will increase from about 27,500 restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to more than 50,000 restaurants across Turkey.

"Mekanist has established itself as one of the heavyweights in the online restaurant search and discovery space in Turkey. We are excited to be joining forces with them as we continue to grow in one of our most important markets.

Mekanist is one of the first and most successful tech startups to emerge from the Turkish startup ecosystem,and we are excited about them becoming a part of Zomato," Deepinder Goyal, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Zomato, said.

The company did not reveal the deal size.
The two teams will be working closely over the coming months to integrate Mekanist into Zomato. All of Mekanist's traffic and restaurant-related content will move to Zomato, and Mekanist app users will be able to use the Zomato app.

This is Zomato's seventh acquisition in the past six months, having acquired Urbanspoon for $52 million to enter the US and Australia markets only a couple of weeks ago. Zomato has also recently acquired local dominant restaurant search players in New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy.

Zomato currently has a team of 27 people in Turkey, most of whom are based out of the local headquarters in Istanbul.

"With the power of Zomato, we will now be able to offer diners in Turkey an even wider range of restaurants to choose from. Users can access the rich, exhaustive information and reviews to easily decide where to eat or order from," said Ali Servet Eyüboglu, co-founder and CEO of Mekanist.