Gurugram-based drone startup TechEagle Innovations, which Zomato had acqui-hired a year-and-a-half ago, has cancelled the acquisition deal and parted ways with the company. TechEagle’s six-member team, including founder & CEO Vikram Singh Meena, resigned en-masse from Zomato on April 30, Meena told MediaNama. MoneyControl first reported on the disassociation between the two companies. While Zomato said that the companies were no longer “aligned” about their future goals, the deal fell through for other reasons, chief among which were Zomato’s funding restrictions and its apprehension to begin drone delivery in countries where regulations are relatively relaxed. Zomato’s plans for food delivery via drones will now take a backburner, even though it successfully tested it a year ago. It was also about to pilot remote drone deliveries in partnership with TechEagle in July. Zomato did not respond to additional questions at the time of publication. Zomato unwilling to invest in R&D, reluctance to experiment with drones “TechEagle’s team initially got a lot of freedom to work, but after sometime it became difficult for them to scale the technology, majorly because of funding restrictions. Zomato only wanted to focus on drone deliveries in the Indian market, and not overseas, but TechEagle wanted to do it in countries where Zomato offers its Gold service,” a person directly involved in the development told MediaNama on the condition of anonymity. Apart from India, Zomato Gold is available in eight other countries, including in UAE, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, and New Zealand. TechEagle founder Vikram Singh Meena confirmed…
