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South African Internet and media conglomerate Naspers has invested about $435 Mn in European food takeaway service Delivery Hero, earlier this month. With this Delivery Hero will further pour in money to strengthen its Indian business Foodpanda India.
Foodpanda Acquisition
In December 2016, the online food ordering marketplace Foodpanda was acquired by Berlin-based Delivery Hero, one of Europe’s biggest startups.
As per a report by Business Standard, the fresh flow of funds will allow Foodpanda to ‘beef up on its technology and delivery.’ Saurabh Kochhar, CEO, Foodpanda India said, “We are constantly looking to strengthen and enhance our food ordering and delivery experience. We recently launched the India app and have made significant investments in technology and delivery ecosystem. This funding will help further our goals in making the foodpanda experience impeccable, for each of our customer.”
Delivery Hero also reported a revenue growth in the first quarter of 2017. As per a company statement, the revenues nearly doubled to about $136 Mn in Q1 2017, compared to $70 Mn in Q1 2016.
Founded in 2011, Delivery Hero is an online food-ordering service operating in 33 countries. Through its website and app, it provides an overview of all the restaurants and delivery services available.
At the time of funding, Bob van Dijk, CEO of Naspers said, “Food ordering and delivery presents an attractive opportunity for us. It is a large, underpenetrated, and growing market with potential for success across a broad range of geographies that Naspers knows well. Delivery Hero has already achieved significant traction in some markets, but we believe that the vast majority of high-growth markets are at the beginning of the opportunity cycle.”
Indian Foodtech Market
In April 2017, it was reported that online food delivery startup Swiggy was in talks with Naspers for a possible fundraise at a valuation of about $400 Mn.
As per a sector report by research and advisory firm RedSeer Consulting, the online food delivery grew at a staggering pace of 150% to reach $300 Mn in GMV terms in 2016. And the online food delivery players handled on an average 1,60,000 orders in a day with an average order value of $5.
As per Inc42 Datalabs in 2016 alone, 50 startups in the foodtech space raised $152.3 Mn in investor funding. The year also saw over 37 shutdowns of foodtech startups. In May 2017, Uber’s on-demand food delivery app UberEATS debuted in India. It has a three-way app for customers, restaurants, and deliveries. In April 2017, Google launched a new hyper local services app in India – Areo. The Areo app delivers food and home services for residents in Bengaluru and Mumbai.
Major competitors in the Indian foodtech space include Zomato, Runnr, Shadowfax among others. Zomato recently declared its results for FY2017, indicating that it’s inching close to profitability.
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