Rocket Internet backed Foodpanda has announced that it has launched its own food delivery services.
Till date customers were ordering food via foodpanda, and the delivery was done by personnel at the respective restaurants. But they are now entering into delivery where they will pick up food from restaurants and deliver it to customers. This move comes in to provide a seamless and unmatched experience to its customers.
“The last mile is really crucial for our customers experience,” said Saurabh Kochhar, who recently joined Foodpanda as India CEO and chief business officer. Kochhar is founder of personalised printing startup Printvenue, another venture incubated by Rocket Internet.
The company has already started the service in across five cities and has hired over 500 personnels to manage delivery. It is further planning to hire another 2000-2500 delivery executives for the business, they are also planning to expand it to 10-12 cities by the end of the year. The firm is currently targeting restaurants, which have delivery services as well as those that have not yet stepped into this realm.
He further said, “Although the service is recently launched, we have already clocked 20% orders and are hoping to escalate this figure to 60-70% by next year. By extending our services from the online stage of ordering to actual delivery at the consumer’s doorstep, we aim at augmenting our customers’ engagement with foodpanda and deliver to a larger set of partners.”
Foodpanda, founded in 2012, operates in 200 Indian cities and currently gets 50% of its orders through its app. “After books, fashion and real estate, the next thing that had to take the app route was food. We need food more than we need any of the above,” said Saurabh Kochhar, added.
FoodPanda investors include Rocket Internet, Phenomen Ventures, Investment AB Kinnevik and iMENA Holdings. The firm is currently spread across 12,000 restaurants gets 150,000 unique visitors every day growing and is growing at 25-30% month on month, with mobile accounting for over 50% of the orders. Foodpanda also has acquired few Indian startups including Pune-based food ordering service TastyKhana, and Indian operations of JustEat.
This moves comes in at a time when Zomato has also disclosed its plans to venture into food delivery space and about investing $50 Mn for setting up food delivery business. Interestingly, Ola has also started food delivery business.
