It made perfect sense for Zomato to go down the fintech route. Until it didn’t.

Daybreak

There was once a time, not very long ago, when every company wanted to be a fintech. Food delivery, ride hailing, e-commerce – companies that you would not otherwise associate with financial services.

And when you think about it, it does add up. A couple years ago, fintech was where the money was at. Indian fintechs received nearly 9 billion dollars in funding in calendar year 2021. It was one the hottest sectors in the country.

The inside joke among venture capitalists was how founders could raise a round of funding just by mentioning “financial services” in their pitch deck. What were earlier standalone businesses would now exist as mere features on their apps. People in the industry came up with a catch-all term – fintech-as-a-feature. Take Ola for instance.

Zomato seemed to be going down that path too. In 2022, it had applied for a non-bank financial company or NBFC licence with the Reserve Bank of India.

But since then, things have changed. From 2022 onwards, the amount of money being raised by fintechs has dipped considerable. In 2022, they raised about 5.4 billion dollars, then in 2023, this amount fell to 2 billion.

What's going on?

Tune in to find out.

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