Swiggy Raises $16.5 Mn In Series B From Norwest & Existing Investors To Take Food Delivery To New level

Bangalore-based food ordering startup, Swiggy, has raised $16.5 Mn in Series B round of funding from the Silicon Valley-based venture capital investor Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and from an undisclosed global investment entity.

The funds will be infused to support Swiggy’s next phase of growth in establishing a stronger brand platform and capturing an increased share in food delivery market of India. Besides, the startup also plans to expand its footprint in other cities of the country.

Commenting on the development, Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy said, “We have seen a 10 fold growth in number of orders over the past few months. This investment will help us expand exponentially as we intend to establish ourselves in several new cities by the end of the year. Combining technology with our own delivery fleet allows us to provide users a superior experience, which has been our key strength, and we will continue to build on it.”

Swiggy plans to step up on its strategy of doorstep food delivery from neighbourhood restaurants to patrons across other cities in India. The startup recently expanded its operations to Gurgaon and Hyderabad where it partnered with over 100 restaurants in each city to facilitate food delivery round the clock.

Swiggy was founded in August 2014 by BITS Pilani alumni Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and IIT Kharagpur graduate Rahul Jaimini.

Majety aims at building Swiggy as a single window for ordering and delivering food from a wide range of restaurants. It targets customers of certain demographics who lie in the age group of 18 and 36 and people from SEC A, B. As informed earlier the startup has 150 delivery executives has now fulfilled over 30,000 food delivery orders in partnership with several restaurants. The Swiggy App has seen a great response with more than 50% of daily orders shifting from the website to the app in a short period of time.

Sumer Juneja, Principal at NVP India said, “Swiggy’s delivery infrastructure solves a major need in the market by enabling restaurants to concentrate on their core business and scale up their delivery revenues. Simultaneously, the product’s ease of use and the convenience it provides to consumers, has resulted in strong repeat rates and an increased customer base.”

The startup had announced its plans to raise over $15Mn from multi-stage venture capital and growth equity investment firm, Norwest Venture Partners last month.  Prior to this the Swiggy had raised $2 Mn from Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.

The total food delivery market in India is estimated to be $6 Bn and continues to expand at a rapid clip. The other players that fit in the domain are Foodpanda, which raised $110Mn from Goldman Sachs, Tinyowl that raised $16Mn from Matrix, Sequoia and Nexus. Recently, Zomato forayed into food delivery and Chef Sanjeev Kapoor disclosed his plans to launch mobile-first food startup.