Online food delivery startup Swiggy has raised $15 Mn (INR 100 Cr) led by US-based venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners in Series D round of funding.
Existing investors including Accel India, SAIF Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in this round.
The funding will be used to enhance customer experience including tech-based upgrades, an increased network of restaurants for its users to select from and for efficient delivery services.
Swiggy was founded in August 2014 by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini. It is currently functional in eight cities and has partnered with 9,000 restaurants on its platform.
Talking about the investment, Vishal Gupta, MD, Bessemer Venture Partners said, “Swiggy’s full stack approach coupled with great execution has resulted in unparalleled customer experience, retention, and business economics. We look forward to working with Sriharsha and the management team as they further cement Swiggy’s leadership position in the India market.”
According to an official statement, with this freshly infused capital, Swiggy has raised around $75.5 Mn (INR 500 Cr) till date. With the deal, the Bengaluru-based startup is now valued at $200 Mn (INR 1,350 Cr).
Swiggy is also pushing hard to increase its growth in the coming phase. To further that aim, it has appointed new Vice Presidents across segments like marketing, product, HR, design, and finance.
In April 2015, Swiggy raised $2 Mn from Accel Partners and SAIF Partners. In June 2015, the company secured $16.5 Mn in Series B funding from Silicon Valley-based venture capital investor Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), SAIF Partners, Accel Partners, and from an undisclosed global investment entity. In January this year, it raised $35 Mn in Series C from New York-based investors Harmony Partners and RB investments who are based in Singapore.
Earlier this month, Inc42 reported that Amazon India was also in advanced talks to invest in Swiggy. In August 2016, restaurants associated with Swiggy and Shadowfax also pulled back from having their orders delivered by the startups.
In yet another development, Google India too announced in August 2016, that users can now place food orders from restaurants on their phones directly via Google search. If the restaurants are listed with either Zomato or Swiggy, then they’ll see an option to “Place an order” in the search results.
Bessemer has earlier invested in startups including LivSpace, Big Basket, Stayglad, UrbanClap, CanvasFlip, and Matrimony.com among others.
According to a Morgan Stanley report, the current online food aggregator business should expect a 134% Y-o-Y growth reaching about $4.4 Bn by 2020. Major competitors for Swiggy include Zomato, Runnr, Shadowfax, and Foodpanda etc.
