Online restaurant search and discovery service Zomato, which provides in-depth information and reviews for over 300,000 restaurants across 20 countries, has recently acquired Italy's leading online and mobile restaurant search service Cibando. 

Cibando will soon be integrated with Zomato, and over the next few months, users will be able to use Zomato for all major cities in Italy. This is Zomato's fifth acquisition in the recent months. Zomato acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland recently.

Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO, Zomato said, "Cibando is one of the largest restaurant search services in Italy. Their existing traffic and user base will give us a great start as we launch Zomato in the country. And we love the Cibando team – I think we have a lot to learn from them about the local market. The entire Cibando team is joining Zomato and will lead the effort of building the business in Italy. We are really excited to be joining forces with them as we focus on being Italy's -- and the world's -- go-to restaurant search service."

Guk Kim, Founder and CEO, Cibando said, "Zomato has been expanding at a rapid pace, and we're excited about being part of that journey. Together, we will be able to offer detailed information for even more restaurants to our users in Italy and beyond, while also helping restaurant businesses connect and engage with customers effectively."

"Our immediate focus will be on integrating Cibando into Zomato, and on building the most comprehensive restaurant search service for the Italian market. We will also scale up our teams in Rome and Milan to 30-40 full-time employees in the next three months." Deepinder of Zomato added.

With 82,000 restaurants listed on Cibando across various cities, the company has an extremely rich content for restaurants in all popular cities in Italy. It has professionally shot food and ambience photographs for a large number of these restaurants.The transaction for Cibando's acquisition is expected to be completed over the next week.

Zomato will invest $6M in Italy over the next 2 years to grow the team and the business in the country.

The current Cibando team is 10 people strong; the new combined entity will grow to 30-40 people in the next three months; over time, in steady state, the Italy operation is expected to grow to 150-200 people across the top 6 cities.