Zomato tackles new languages for first time, takes restaurant listings to Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil

Three months after its last round of expansions, India-based restaurant listing site Zomato is taking on its biggest challenge yet – translating the site into new languages for the first time. Today, Zomato launches in Jakarta (in Indonesian), Istanbul (in Turkish), and Sao Paolo (in Portuguese). Previously the site supported only English.

Albinder Dhindsa, head of international operations at Zomato, points out that Zomato is also rolling out today in Durban (South Africa), and in the Scottish cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. But Zomato has already ventured into South Africa and the UK, so those other additions weren’t such monumental tasks.

(Update six hours later): Zomato has secured $37 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital, with previous investor Info Edge also joining in.

A taste of Jakarta, with more Indonesian cities to come

The Zomato website and mobile apps now feature listings, Albinder tells TechinAsia, for 12,300 restaurants in the Jakarta area, with 11,900 menus already uploaded, along with other useful info like photos and location. Now users can start adding reviews for all the new venues.

“We had to set up from scratch,” Albinder explains of the challenge of launching in new languages. “The language issues mean we need local teams everywhere.” Previously, the Indian team had been able to lead expansions into other nations like the UK and Australia.

Zomato will add listings for Bandung, a city not too far from Jakarta, later next month, which will bring the total number of Indonesian listings up to about 18,000. The Indonesian team is made up of 21 people, not including a group of Indian staffers who will return to HQ after a while. It’s a mostly local team, and it’s still recruiting and welcomes job applications in Indonesia.

There’s no shortage of food discovery sites in Jakarta – such as this new one last month – but Zomato hits the ground running with its vast catalog of places to eat.

Malaysia and Vietnam the next destinations in Asia?

Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur has been on the startup’s radar for a while, we’re told, and the team is also eyeing up Vietnam despite it being “still a nascent market” right now, Albinder says. “We’re intrigued by Vietnam.”

Today’s new additions should be showing some time this afternoon in Zomato’s mobile apps as well as the main website.

(Editing by Paul Bischoff)