By 80 million$ is served on the platter of Swiggy, an online food delivery platform, by one of the leading internet conglomerate, Naspers in a series E funding round gaining an edge over its contenders, Zomato and Food Panda. This online food delivery platform founded by a group of alumnus from renowned educational institutions like IIM, IIT and BITS, satiating the appetites of foodies, is recently savouring the new investment garnished by Naspers.
The company has now reached a valuation of around $400 million by this recent funding following $15 million & $16.5 million investment by Bessemer venture partners and Norwest venture partners in the past. The food delivery company which endured a 65 fold increase in loss in FY 2015-16 than in FY 2014-15 is now having a 12,000 partner restaurants in 8 cities and recorded a mouth watering 1 million orders in April 2016.
This recent funding can be considered as a revival for the contemporary lamenting of food startup business models. Sriharsha Majety,CEO of Swiggy, said “We have a fully scaled technology platform but will look at growing our data science and machine learning capabilities. Our current team size in data sciences in single digits but we plan to grow that. We will also double our engineering team by 2018 to 200 people and will be hiring for middle and senior leadership teams” and also added that “part of the capital will also be leveraged to increase the service offerings of Swiggy to restaurant partners as opposed to plain vanilla order placement and fulfilment operations. The platform had also started cloud kitchens as part of its offerings to restaurant partners looking to serve in areas where they do not have a physical presence. “There are ongoing partnerships with our restaurant partners under the hood and we will take a call on which experiments to scale”.
Naspers also raised an investment of $421.3 million in a Berlin based food ordering and delivery company, Delivery Hero in 2011. With its recent venture of 512 crores with Swiggy, the company once again showed its penchant towards food startup business. Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Investments in India for Naspers ,will join the swiggy team.
“Swiggy has shown impressive growth in a highly competitive market. Naspers was attracted to the company’s exceptional execution in disrupting online food ordering and delivery in India while many players are struggling. Their ability to create a sustainable business, earning consumer trust through a reliable first-party delivery technology, positions them well for success,” said Sharma in an email statement.
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