What’s the Untold Story of Zomato? ‘Unseen’ Reveals It All

A forthcoming biography promises to pull back the curtain on Zomato's meteoric rise from a humble restaurant listing site to India's pioneering consumer-tech unicorn, chronicling the highs, lows, and midnight crises that defined its journey. Titled Unseen: The Untold Story of Deepinder Goyal and the Making of Zomato, the book by former journalist and Zomato vice president Megha Vishwanath is set for release on October 30, 2025, by Penguin Random House India (PRHI).

Drawing from three years of intimate access to the company's inner workings, Vishwanath reconstructs not a polished timeline of triumphs, but raw "moments" that tested resilience—from early cash crunches to high-stakes acquisitions—offering readers a visceral glimpse into the food delivery behemoth's evolution.

The narrative kicks off with the spark of inspiration: a greasy pile of takeout menus in an office cafeteria that birthed Foodiebay.com in 2008, co-founded by Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah while at Bain & Company. Vishwanath delves into Goyal's personal metamorphosis, portraying him as "a man who built, broke, and rebuilt his company and himself in public view, yet remained curiously private in spirit." Key vignettes include a frantic pandemic-era phone call where Goyal hustled to raise $5 million overnight to avert collapse and the pre-IPO grind that forged Zomato's unyielding culture.

The book spotlights pivotal deals like the 2018 acquisition of Uber Eats India, which solidified Zomato's market dominance amid fierce rivalry, and the tumultuous Blinkit integration—a quick-commerce pivot marked by protracted negotiations, investor scepticism, and internal pushback that ultimately expanded Zomato's ecosystem to grocery deliveries.

Through hundreds of interviews with colleagues, friends, and family, Vishwanath illuminates the tightrope of survival and scale. Early financial squeezes instilled a "discipline of staying small", while the 2021 IPO—valuing Zomato at $12.7 billion despite losses—tested convictions. Goyal, an IIT Delhi alumnus who bootstrapped the platform from restaurant reviews to a global service in over 20 countries, emerges as a resilient visionary.

Zomato, now boasting 18 million monthly transacting customers and a market cap exceeding ₹2 lakh crore as of October 2025, exemplifies India's startup boom, processing billions in orders annually. Yet, the book doesn't shy away from vulnerabilities, like the 2020 layoffs amid COVID-19 or Goyal's bold forays into non-core ventures.

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PRHI executive editor Radhika Marwah praised Vishwanath's dedication: "Megha has captured the soul of Zomato and the man who has made it his life's mission to make the company eternal... telling the tale as honestly as she could while staying true to her craft." As Zomato navigates profitability—reporting its first annual profit in FY24—and eyes international expansion, Unseen arrives at a timely juncture, demystifying the man behind the memes and the machinery powering late-night cravings. For aspiring entrepreneurs and Zomato loyalists, it's a candid blueprint of grit in the gig economy.

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