Deepinder Goel, in a letter to shareholders, called it "a new day zero" for the food delivery giant.
Soon after Zomato's blockbuster listing on Friday, a tweet from the food delivery start-up declared: "From one day to Day One".
Shares of Zomato Ltd opened at a 52.6% premium to their offer price, gaining a market valuation of about $12 billion. Shares opened at Rs 116 in pre-open trade compared to the initial public offering (IPO) price of Rs 76.
This is the first stock market listing of an Indian startup valued at more than $1 billion. The company is offering 1.23 billion shares for sale at the higher end of its price band, with the size of the IPO coming up to Rs 93.75 billion. Zomato's listing was advanced by four days.
Shortly before the much-anticipated debut, Zomato's founder and CEO Deepinder Goel had tweeted: "Never been so excited and indifferent at the same time." He shared an image of a board saying: "Proud of the past, thankful for the present, ready for the future."
Deepinder Goyal also wrote a letter to shareholders before the listing calling it "a new day zero" for the food delivery giant.
"Today is a big day for us. A new Day Zero. But we couldn't have gotten here without the incredible efforts of India's entire internet ecosystem," he wrote in the letter titled "Letter from Deepi".
He also gave a shout-out to rival Swiggy.
"I'm a firm believer in India, and where our country will be in the future. India is a tough market to operate in, but if you are building to succeed in India, you are already exceptional. I say that because I believe Zomato and Swiggy are two of the best food delivery apps in the world today. We have a long way to go before we can call ourselves world class by our customers' standards, but we are determined to get there," Mr Goel wrote.
"Our 10+ year journey has not always been smooth. We have lived through many ups and downs - something not every company has the privilege of living long enough to do. I have made many decisions which have been good for the company, while some have caused our stakeholders a lot of heartburn. That said, we have found ourselves managing times of crisis on different occasions in much the same way - impatiently staying focused on the long term, executing relentlessly, and committing ourselves to doing the very best we can do today."
The Zomato founder said the company would "relentlessly focus on 10 years out and beyond" and would not alter its course for short term profits at the cost of long term success.
Mr Goel also mentioned Jio, Flipkart, Amazon, Ola, Uber and Paytm, crediting them with "laying the railroads" for companies like Zomato.
"I don't know whether we will succeed or fail - we will surely, like always, give it our best. But I hope that the fact that we are here, inspires millions of Indians to dream bigger than we ever have, and build something way more incredible than what we can dream of," he said.
Zomato, launched in 2008, operates in about 525 cities in India and has partnered with close to 390,000 restaurants. The company's offering last week was more than 38 times oversubscribed.