Travel App RailYatri Acqui-Hires YatraChef To Boost Up Last Mile Commerce

Taking a step ahead for customer’s convenience, Noida-based long distance travel app, RailYatri has acqui-hired Kochi-based food delivery technology startup, YatraChef. With this, YatraChef will manage the pan-India supply side of RailYatri’s in-transit delivery services.

RailYatri, founded in 2011 by Kapil Raizada, Manish Rathi and Sachin Saxena, received venture funding of unknown amount in October 2016 with total funding of $486K. In October 2016, it had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from existing investors including Nandan Nilekani, Helion Ventures, Omidyar Partners, and Blume Ventures. Meanwhile YatraChef was founded in 2013 by Arun Rajan and Rameez Ashraf.

Manish Rathi, CEO & Co-founder RailYatri said, “YatraChef brings a deep experience of nearly four years in food delivery and vendor management, and has a track-record of delivering outstanding customer experience to travelers. Their skills will help us jointly develop new offerings that would re-define the travel experience with RailYatri. We are delighted to have them on board.”

YatraChef has earned accolades with its customer friendly portal and delivery services. YatraChef connects Indian rail travellers to the restaurants delivering food at the stations they will cross in their journey. A customer has to visit the Yatrachef portal, enter PNR and choose amongst from the varieties of food available at their station.

RailYatri has continued to strengthen its supply side commerce capabilities to create premium and different offerings for its customer base. It provides comprehensive information on trains, passenger amenities at stations, seat availability, tickets, platforms and the speed of the train, along with personalised alerts.

Arun Rajan, CEO and co-founder at YatraChef said, “Having partnered with RailYatri for some time now, it was an obvious decision to join hands as we can make a much bigger impact together. We are excited to be part of the RailYatri family and look forward to continue growing stronger than before.”

Other travel realted startups operating in the same domain like RailYatri include TravelKhana, IRCTC, KhanaGaDi, RailRider etc.The Indian railway food delivery industry’s estimated GMV for 2016 was $300 Mn, research firm RedSeer said in its report.