Unseen: Zomato's Journey & Deepinder Goyal

New Delhi, Oct 7 (PTI) From the greasy stack of takeout menus in an office cafeteria that sparked Foodiebay.com, to a midnight phone call during the pandemic when Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal scrambled to raise USD 5 million to keep operations running, a new book reveals the untold story of the food and grocery delivery giant.

Written by former journalist and Zomato vice-president Megha Vishwanath, "Unseen", scheduled to release on October 30, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of India's first consumer-tech unicorn.

Published by Penguin Random House India, it also profiles the company's founder, Goyal, portraying him as "a man who built, broke, and rebuilt his company and himself, in public view, yet remained curiously private in spirit".

"Instead of a linear startup success story, Vishwanath reconstructs the Zomato journey not in milestones, but in moments. Over three years of shadowing its founder, she captures the pulse of a company constantly rebuilding itself in real time," reads the description of the book.

So, be it the first cash crunch crisis that forced the team to learn the discipline of staying small, or the pre-IPO years that tested conviction and culture, "Unseen: The untold story of Deepinder Goyal and the making of Zomato" traces the tightrope between survival and scale.

Drawing from hundreds of interviews with colleagues, friends, and family -- as well as her own insider vantage point -- the debutant author sheds light on the pivotal moments that shaped Zomato's journey: "the high-stakes Uber Eats India acquisition, and the rollercoaster Blinkit deal marked by drawn-out negotiations, investor doubts, and leadership pushback".

"In 'Unseen', Megha has captured the soul of Zomato and the man who has made it his life's mission to make the company eternal. It has been a privilege to see Megha's commitment to bringing this story to life --painstakingly interviewing scores of people, unraveling the timeline of a unicorn, marrying numbers with anecdotes, and telling the tale as honestly as she could while staying true to her craft," Radhika Marwah, executive editor at PRHI, said in a statement.