MUMBAI: Online restaurant search firm Zomato saw a 34% dip in its total loss for 2016-17 to Rs 389 crore from Rs 590 crore in the previous year, according to the annual report of its largest shareholder Info Edge , thanks mainly to a strategy that excluded self-fulfilled deliveries.This makes the Gurugram-based firm the first Indian internet unicorn, or startup valued at more than $1 billion (about Rs 6,460 crore), to substantially reduce its losses.The company's losses shrank even as its revenue surged 81% year-on-year to Rs 333 crore from Rs 184 crore, the report said, a potential pointer to the changing fortunes of India's food-tech sector.The development comes at a time when internet companies are increasingly being driven to focus on unit economics by investors.Zomato declined to respond to a detailed email query sent by ET. Over the past 18 months or so, the company has been steadily rationalising its international operations and increasingly focusing on its offline channel through a slew of product innovations, a move that has helped significantly reduce its burn rate.A redesigned advertising model with targeted ads helped the company's core business of advertising revenue grow 58% to $38 million, the company had said in a blog post in April. It hired former chief executive of Tata Docomo Deepak Gulati as president and chief operating officer to drive advertising revenue for 2017-18.But Info Edge, which holds 47% stake in Zomato, said that the company will have to prune its strategy on building product differentiation and strengthening its team to stay ahead in a competitive market where it has locked horns with Swiggy "Overall, the company is expected to deliver good growth in revenues across brands, profitability of the brands are expected to improve, but at the aggregate level the company will have to keep on investing in products and people to maintain leadership in a market, which is fast getting exposedprone to competition," the report said.Swiggy recently raised $80 million in a round led by South African telecom and media giant Naspers Ventures , valuing the Bengaluru-based startup at $400 million.ET had reported in May that Zomato was evaluating the option of fulfilling deliveries on its own for a small set of restaurants as it looked to catch up with Swiggy, which leads the online order business space by volumes. Zomato had earlier said that profitable unit economics of a self-fulfilled delivery model, followed by Swiggy, was not viable.