Online restaurant discovery and food ordering service Zomato 's losses are shooting up significantly as it invests heavily on online food delivery services amid the struggling food-tech category in the country.Zomato's loss before tax has shot up by 262% to Rs 492.3 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2016, from Rs 136 crore loss in the previous year, the company's majority investor Info Edge has disclosed in its earnings results.The Gurugram-based company's operating revenues has also nearly doubled to Rs 184.97 crore for the year from Rs 96.7 crore in the previous year. Info Edge currently owns 47% stake in Zomato which has raised around $225 million till now. Zomato did not respond to an email seeking comment.In February, Zomato had claimed to have achieved operational break even in six countries including India, the UAE, Lebanon, Qatar, the Philippines and Indonesia.Earlier this month, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal had also claimed "they are profitable in the order business at a unit economics level, and the overall online ordering business will hit profitability when they hit an average of 40,000 orders a day".He further noted that they are are generating 33,000 online orders as of May 8, and claimed to be the "largest player and only profitable players on a unit economics level by GMV"That being said, Zomato has had a tough past one year. It laid off about 10% of its workforce in October 2015, with majority of them in the United States that accounts for 50% of its listings.It also rolled back online ordering in four cities in January and shifted its strategy to focus more on its enterprise products in newer markets.This was in the backdrop of the entire food-tech category struggling with funding slowdown, resulting in several companies shutting or scaling down its business or getting acquired by larger companies.Rival TinyOwl is merging with hyperlocal logistics player Roadrunnr to build a combined product called Runnr while Rocket Internet-backed FoodPanda is reportedly struggling to find a buyer for its troubled India operations even at a lowly price tag of $10-15 million.FoodPanda India CEO Saurabh Kochhar however told in a statement to ETtech that the company has no plans to exit from the Indian market and confidently remains market leader in the online food segment."We are extremely happy with the development of our business in India. We are a global player in food ordering business, backed by a group of renowned investors. Whenever we have felt the need for investments we have invested and we will continue to do so. We have achieved an outstanding rate of automation in India and have built incredible technological innovations that have dramatically improved our order processing, vendor management and delivery rider allocation." Kochhar said."Marketplace business generally require many years to turn profitable, we are happy to see this happening even faster at foodpanda. Online food ordering is one of the most profitable Internet business models and we are proving so in India as well." Kochhar added.Rival food-ordering startup Swiggy also raised $35 million led by existing investors SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and Norwest Venture Partners in January while online first restaurant FreshMenu raised $17 million led by Zodius Capital in the same month.Earlier this month, HSBC's brokerage arm HSBC Securities and Capital Markets had also slashed the valuation of Zomato by half to $500 million, raised concerns around Zomato's ad-heavy business model, its international operations and growing competition in the online food ordering segment.Goyal however had disputed this markdown saying that "nobody who knows our business has marked down our valuations" and their existing investors have categorically stated that the company's valuations are justified."Our existing investors are bullish about us, and are willing to back us further, if needed. Especially because we are more than doubling year on year, and the next year looks even more exciting for us" Goyal said.