Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates online food ordering startup Swiggy, has raised $35 million (around Rs 236 crore) in Series C round of funding from New York-based investor Harmony Partners and Singapore-based RB Investments. Existing investors also participated in the round.
This comes seven months after the firm bagged Series B funding of $16.5 million (around Rs 102 crore) in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). It also counts SAIF Partners, Accel Partners among others as existing investors.
The fresh funding will be utilised for technology upgradation, reducing overall delivery time and cost and enhancing customer experience, a company statement said.
The startup was founded in August 2014 by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini. Majety and Reddy are BITS-Pilani alumni while Jaimini is an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus.
“While our focus will continue to be growth across all geographies, we will now concentrate on profitability and sustainability in established markets. We are looking to deliver over 1 million orders a month in the near future,†said Majety, co-founder and CEO, Swiggy.
Swiggy offers online food ordering service from restaurants in eight cities including Bangalore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune and claims to have over 5,000 restaurants listed on its platform. The startup claims that its order count has grown over 20 times in the last few months. It claims to have an average delivery time of 36 minutes per order.
This is the first investment by Harmony Partners in India. The New York-based venture capital firm, with $110 million under its management, seeks to invest in financial services, consumer services, technology and life science areas.
RB Investments is a boutique venture fund providing early stage funding. Besides Swiggy, it has invested in food ordering startups Faasos and Delight Foods in India. It has also invested in several other Indian startups including Capricoast, TrendyBharat and Ziffi.
The online food ordering business in India is estimated to be worth around Rs 6,000 crore, growing at about 30 per cent month-on-month, according to a report by India Brand Equity Foundation. However, this segment is transaction-driven and margins can be wafer thin.
Swiggy has raised funds at a time when other startups with similar business models are laying off staffers or shutting down businesses.
Foodpanda said last month that it will sack 15 per cent of its employees, or 330 people, as increased automation of 98 per cent in order processing has reduced the need for staffers.
Food ordering startup TinyOwl has sacked almost 212 employees in the last six months.
Gurgaon-based restaurant listing and services firm Zomato recently announced that it is shutting down its online food ordering service in four cities—Lucknow, Kochi, Indore and Coimbatore.