Rocket Internet's online food delivery service Foodpanda has launched a third party delivery service for restaurants, reports ETtech. Foodpanda will now handle delivery of orders placed through both its platform and other competing platforms. The service is currently live in Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore. Partner restaurants can get all orders delivered by Foodpanda's logistics team, or opt for the service on a need-to-need basis. Apparently, 500 restaurants have already signed up for this service. Foodpanda had launched its delivery service back in April 2015. At the time, the company had claimed that 20% of the orders received by them in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune opt for the delivery service. In December last year, Rocket Internet’s international online food delivery service Delivery Hero acquired Foodpanda for an undisclosed amount, to consolidate key markets, increase its geographic footprint and reduce complexity at the group level. A few months later, in May 2017, Delivery Hero raised $431.45 million from global internet and entertainment group Naspers, and revealed that a part of this would be invested in its India operations (read Foodpanda). Competition from Swiggy and Zomato Interestingly, last month competing online food ordering and delivery platform, Swiggy also raised funds from Naspers: it raised $80 million from Naspers and existing investors, and said that the funds will be used for introducing a suite of new product and service offerings. At the time, ETtech reported that the company had reduced delivery costs by 35%. This is noteworthy because in December last year Swiggy started charging delivery charges for orders below Rs 250.…
