Zomato shuts Intercity Legends over lack of product market fit

Zomato has announced the immediate shutdown of its Intercity Legends service, which allowed customers to order iconic dishes from 10 cities across India and have them delivered to other parts of the country. Deepinder Goyal, chief executive officer of the online food delivery giant, said on X that it was due to the lack of a product market fit.

"Update on Zomato Legends - after two years of trying, not finding product market fit, we have decided to shut down the service with immediate effect," he wrote.

Zomato Legends was launched in 2022. Initially it had no minimum order requirement. It was suspended in April and briefly resumed in July with adjustments aimed at improving profitability. It introduced a Rs 5,000 minimum order value to improve profitability. Despite these changes, the project ultimately proved financially unviable for Zomato.

At the time of Intercity's launch, the company had written in a blog, "A jewel hides in every nook and corner of India. With over a 100 airports and a rich spread of the most iconic dishes that India has to offer, the sky is the limit to how big Intercity Legends can become."

Zomato has shut down Intercity Legends as the company shifts its focus towards diversifying into other adjacent sectors to boost revenue and strengthen its market position. The announcement follows just a day after Zomato revealed its plans to acquire the movie and events ticketing businesses of fintech giant Paytm for ₹2,034 crore.

This is another service Zomato has shut down, following the discontinuation of previous pilot projects. The Gurugram-based company previously ended Xtreme, a hyperlocal logistics service that allowed merchants to send and receive small parcels, after it failed to deliver the expected results.

In January 2023, Zomato scrapped Instant, its 10-minute delivery service, a year after piloting it in Bengaluru, Gurugram and in some areas of Delhi.