Swish Raises $14 Mn To Scale Its 10-Minute Food Delivery Offering

Amid the heating 10-minute food delivery battle, Bengaluru-based Swish has raised about $14 Mn (INR 121.8 Cr to be precise) in what appears to be its Series A funding round from venture capitalist (VC) firm Accel, Hara Global, and Unacademy founder Gaurav Munjal.

As per the startup’s filings with the MCA, its board allotted 4,742 Series A compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS) at a face value of INR 100 and a premium of INR 2,56,324.43 and 10 equity shares at a face value of INR 10 and similar premium on February 28. 

The round saw Hara Global acquire 2,704 CCPS and 10 equity shares, translating to a total of INR 69.57 Cr. Accel invested INR 52.19 Cr by buying 2,036 CCPS, while Munjal invested INR 5.1 Lakh in the startup. 

Inc42 reached out to Swish cofounder Aniket Shah to seek further details about the funding round. However, he didn’t respond to calls and text messages.

The startup, which started delivering quick-bites from its cloud kitchen like set up in Bengaluru’s HSR Layout in August last year, last raised $2 Mn in its seed funding round led by Accel in November. 

Its early backers also include ex-Swiggy Instamart head Karthik Gurumurthy and Urban Company founders Abhiraj Bhal and Varun Khaitan.

The startup then said that it planned to use the capital to expand its presence across Bengaluru. Since then, it has expanded to other localities in Bengaluru like Indiranagar, Koramangala, Whitefield, among others. 

Shah told Inc42 in August that Swish was eyeing setting up 45 Pods (its cloud kitchens) over the next six months in a bid to cater to the “most high-demand areas of Bengaluru”. The startup then planned to expand outside Bengaluru in due course of time. 

Swish, founded by ex-Pillow founding team members Shah, Ujjwal Sukheja, and former Polygon Labs software engineer Saran S, delivers a range of fast food offerings in 10 to 15 minutes via its app. Since its launch, the Swish app has gained over 100K downloads on Google Play Store. 

While Swish operates only on its home turf in Bengaluru, its significantly larger competitors, Swiggy, Zomato, and Zepto, have adopted a similar cloud kitchen model to fuel their 10-minute deliveries bandwagon in recent months. 

Its competitors are also seeing significant traction for their quick food delivery offerings. Last month, Zepto cofounder and CEO Aadit Palicha claimed that Zepto Cafe has hit 1 Lakh orders per day. 

In a post on LinkedIn on February 22, he said that Zepto Cafe is close to achieving $100 Mn annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) run-rate with a near 50% steady-state gross margin. 

While Zomato-owned Blinkit has launched Bistro for quick deliveries, Swiggy has launched SNACC. Besides, the two companies are also offering 10 to 15 minute deliveries under their food delivery segment.