Food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy has raised Series G funding of $210 million led by existing investor Naspers and new investor DST Global. The round will also see participation from existing shareholder, China’s service e-commerce platform Meituan-Dianping and new investor, Coatue Management.
Swiggy has said it will use the fresh funds to ramp up its supply chain network, to expand to new markets, technology and branding, it said in a statement. It added that it will double its technology headcount for operations, personalization and connected supply chain systems.
In last three months, Swiggy has expanded its operations in Kochi, Coimbatore, Nagpur and Lucknow. It recently launched a new service called Swiggy POP through which the company offers a curated menu of single-serve meals in the range of Rs 99- 200 from neighbourhood restaurants. Earlier, it launched Swiggy Scheduled, which allow users to pre-order their meals up to 48 hours in advance, at zero delivery charges.
Started in 2014, Swiggy lists about 35,000 restaurants, and have a delivery fleet of 40,000 partners across 15 cities. The company said that it registered a three-fold increase in revenues in the last financial year.
Previous Fundings
According to CrunchBase data, Swiggy has raised a total amount $465.5 million till date.
Series F: In February, it raised $100 million from its existing investor Naspers and a new investor Meituan-Dianping, China’s service e-commerce platform.
Series E: In May 2017, it raised $80 million led by global internet and entertainment group Naspers, along with participation from existing investors Accel India, SAIF Partners India, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harmony Partners and Norwest Venture Partners.
Series D: In September 2016, it raised $15 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Earlier, In May 2016, it raised Rs 47 crore (a little over $7 million) from Norwest Venture Partners, DST Global and Accel Partners.
Series C: In January 2016, it raised funding worth $35 million from new and existing investors for using across user acquisition, adding restaurants, tech upgrades, hiring etc.
Series B: In June 2015, the company raised funding worth $16.5 million led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors SAIF Partners and Accel Partners and an undisclosed entity.
Series A: In April 2015, it raised $2.5 million from Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.
Intensified battleground
Such capital power with Swiggy will intensify the competition in the battleground of food ordering space, which has four major players in India- Swiggy, Zomato, UberEats, and now Ola.
Zomato raised $150 million from Alibaba’s Ant Financial in February. Over and above this, Ant Financial bought another 6.66% stake (around 32,629 shares) of Zomato from Info Edge for $50 million, taking the total expenditure for Ant Financial in this deal to $200 million. In FY18, food ordering brought in nearly 30% of Zomato’s revenue, with the share increasing from close to 18% in FY17. In March 2018, food delivery in India grew by 48% in terms of order volume over the previous month and revenue-wise by 55%. Its food ordering service is functional in 15 Indian cities and 5 cities in the Middle East. In terms of usage, the company said it had nearly 5.5 million monthly food orders in March 2018.
Uber recently said that within a year of operations starting from Mumbai in May 2017, Uber Eats has listings from 12,000 restaurants with at least 40 new restaurants being added daily. UberEats which is now available in 13 cities in India is apparently experiencing nearly 50% month-on-month growth, and the number of orders has doubled in the last 3 months. The company said that it will expand the offering in tier 2 markets in the coming month.
In December 2017, Ola bought Foodpanda India from its Germany-based parent Delivery Hero Group and said they that will invest $200 million in the food delivery business. Foodpanda India claims to have around 15,000 restaurant partners across 100 cities in India.
