Zomato Invests In Hyderabad Based FoodTech Startup TinMen

In a recent blog post, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal state that Zomato has invested in Hyderabad-based foodtech startup, TinMen.

Post this investment, Zomato and TinMen will work together to expand its services, initially in Hyderabad, and then the rest of the country.

Talking about the acquisition, Deepinder Goyal said, “We are exploring alliances with existing players, big and small, to help surface a larger variety of healthy meal options to our users. In that spirit, we just made an investment into a startup called TinMen – an efficient and modest little company which provides easy access to home cooked meals at affordable prices, for thousands of people in Hyderabad.”

Started in August 2015 by Mukesh Manda and Chaitanya Degala, TinMen offers home-cooked lunches to working professionals in Hyderabad. It provides office lunches with a scheduler built into their App available on both Android and iPhone. TinMen’s last funding came in January 2016, when it raised an undisclosed amount in angel round from the Lead Angel Network.

Users can create meal plans for a day, a week or a month. TinMen allows users to start and opt out of the deliveries at a day’s notice. Customers can also pre-schedule their meals. The app also has a built-in wallet and chef reviews for the home-chefs. Currently, it has over 80 chefs on its platform. As per the company website the meals start at INR 65 and TinMen does not levy a delivery charge.

TinMen also offers solutions to mid-market companies who want to offer lunch benefits to their employees by acting as a virtual cafeteria. Companies have the flexibility to choose a budget for their employees on TinMen and the employees can choose from 100+ cuisine options on the app.

As per the blogpost TinMen is already delivering over 30,000 orders a month. It currently serves 10 major areas in Hyderabad – Madhapur, Hitec City, Kondapur, Gachibowli, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Begumpet, Miyapur, Manikonda and Kukatpally.

This comes just a few days after food delivery startup Zomato acquired Bengaluru-based Runnr. Runnr is a B2B online service provider platform for hyperlocal logistics services. Earlier this month, the company also claimed to be profitable throughout the 24 countries where it operates, and across all its businesses. To commemorate the same, it introduced zero commission model for the partner restaurants.

In July 2017, the food delivery giant raked in over 3 Mn monthly orders for the first time. Earlier in the annual report for FY17, Zomato reported an 80% surge in revenue to around $60 Mn. The restaurant discovery and food delivery platform witnessed an 81% drop in the annual operating burn for FY17 at $12 Mn compared to the $64 Mn in FY16.

With the recent investment in TinMen, the food delivery startup will look to strengthen its presence in the foodtech space in Hyderabad. The year 2017 has gone exceptionally well for Zomato. With its new initiative of zero commission model, coupled with the Zomato Runnr team, the Gurugram-based foodtech giant is currently eyeing to enrol more partner restaurants. This will help Zomato stay firmly intact against competitors like Naspers’s back Swiggy, UberEats, Google’s Areo, etc.

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