Zomato's Deepinder Goyal Dethrones Retail King Radhakishan Damani As India's Top Self-Made Entreprenuer

DMART's owner Radhakishan Damani's success is exactly like those rags-to-riches stories. He went from opening a small kirana shop to now sitting on the throne of a multi-billion-dollar retail chain in India. DMART is his star child, and its success has kept Damani on the top rank of the self-made entrepreneurs list for many years. However, in 2025, Damani has finally met his rival. And it is none other than Deepinder Goyal who owns Eternal, formerly known as Zomato.

As per the 'IDFC FIRST Private & Hurun India's Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2025' list, Deepinder has dethroned Goyal to take the number one rank. Deepinder is younger than Damani but currently owns the reign of Rs 3.20 lakh crore worth of Eternal on BSE and NSE.

Damani is now at the second rank of the self-made billionaires list, with his Avenue Supermarts (DMART) having a market cap of Rs 297,800 crore.

The IDFC-Hurun main release said, India's Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2025" list stands at INR 42 lakh crore and features entrepreneurs from 51 cities across India. For the first time since the list's inception, Deepinder Goyal (42), founder of Eternal, has overtaken R K Damani (70) of DMart to claim the No. 1 spot.

The ranking of this list is in the order of the value of the enterprises created by the founders and not the net worth of the founders themselves.

Because if we take into consideration the net worth, there are miles of difference between Damani and Goyal's wealth.

As per FORBES, the 42-year-old Zomato owner has a net worth of $1.7 billion as of December 18, 2025. But Damani truly holds the title of retail king with net worth of $15.4 billion.

Veteran Mumbai investor Radhakishan Damani became India's retail king after the 2017 IPO of his supermarket chain Avenue Supermarts. Damani got into retailing in 2002 with one store in suburban Mumbai and has grown into a chain selling everything from groceries to apparel to footwear, as per FORBES.

Meanwhile, Deepinder founded the online food delivery app Zomato in 2008, and he still runs the company as CEO. He was at the forefront of the Zomato IPO, which was oversubscribed by 35 times and listed at a valuation of a whopping $12 billion. Under his leadership, Zomato has made some notable mergers and acquisitions. For instance, it bought the quick commerce platform Blinkit to compete with Instamart and Zepto and then further launched a B2B platform called HyperPure.

Both DMART and Zomato are engaged in somewhat similar businesses, but their core roots are polar opposites. Where DMART is a brick-and-mortar retail chain like Walmart, Zomato's core business is purely digital.

That being said, in the Hurun's self-made billionaires list for 2025 are also other notable names.

At the third rank is Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal for their Interglobe Aviation who has a market cap of more than Rs 2.19 lakh crore. Indigo is the largest airline in India in terms of market share.

Fourth in the list is Abhay Soi, who is the first-generation entrepreneur and Chairman & Managing Director of Max Healthcare Institute Limited. He holds the 4th rank due to Max Healthcare's market cap at nearly Rs 1.11 lakh crore.

Not too far behind are Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy, the duo behind Swiggy who is the direct rival to Zomato in terms of online food delivery and quick commerce segment. Swiggy was founded in 2014 in Bengaluru and holds a market cap over Rs 1.06 lakh crore when the list was made.

The 'IDFC FIRST Private & Hurun India's Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2025' is a list that recognizes the 200 most valuable companies based in India, established on or after 2000. This list focuses on the exceptional achievements of self-made Indian entrepreneurs who have built and nurtured the most valuable companies during this millennium.