Food delivery app Zomato’s stock market debut (technically known as an initial public offering, or an IPO) in July 2021 was spectacularly spicy. It was oversubscribed by… allow us to tell you in terms of a value meal. Imagine you order a burger. And get 40, instead. Yeah, that’s how much more money investors poured in over three days.

While investors were busy filling up forms and writing cheques, social media did what it does best – it ordered a meme-fest!

The IPO created history (it attracted record anchor investors and received the second highest number of applications) but also ended up creating virally delicious moments on social media.

The first dish of the meme-all-you-can buffet was, appropriately, served by Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato. At 7.08am on July 14, minutes before the IPO went live, he tweeted: “Just ordered a triple breakfast @zomato. Stress eating”. That was quickly followed by a tweet from the official @Zomato account, talking about the nervousness before the launch.

Within half an hour of the launch, it became clear that there was quite a bit of demand for the IPO. A witty one-liner from Zomato’s official account showering ‘ghee on paratha’ blessings on all those applying for IPO too got traction online.

Partners soon jumped in. Kotak Securities, which was one of the IPO’s application platforms, chimed in with support. Before long, fans and general Twitterati were all over the meme-themed party, taking a jibe at competing brands or just generally jumping on the trending bandwagon.

Even as the IPO generated a lot of buzz among institutional and retail investors, a section of the market was worried about the fact that Zomato remained a net loss-making entity.