The battle in the online food delivery space is set to get more aggressive after Bengaluru-based Swiggy announced on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in Series F funding. According to the company, this is their largest ever funding round yet. Including the latest round, investors have so far pumped in $255 million into Swiggy.
The Series F funding is led by Naspers, a global internet and entertainment group operating in over 120 countries. In this round, a new investor has also joined Swiggy. The new investor is Meituan-Dianping, China’s largest service e-commerce platform.
“With this latest round of funding the company is looking to strengthen its market leadership position by introducing a host of unique and advanced products and services,” the company said in an official statement. The statement added that as part of its long-term strategy of solving existing supply gaps in the market place, Swiggy will also make investments in its New Supply business line.
Last November ‘Swiggy Access’ was launched,a programme which allows its restaurant partners to set up kitchen spaces in neighborhoods where they don’t currently operate. The fresh funds infused on Thursday will be used for its further expansion, the company said on while announcing the funding round.
Swiggy said it will also continue to focus on its core technology platform, especially in the areas of data-driven self-learning systems that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence. Further, the company said that it will build on its adaptive, real-time prediction and optimisation systems to further improve consumer choice and personalisation, along with speed, volume and efficiency of deliveries.
"With this funding, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core,’’ Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety said.
In the last three months, Swiggy entered newer markets like Jaipur, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad apart from having presence in major metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru. The company claims that it posted a record increase of 500% in revenues in the last financial year and saw order volumes nearly double since its previous funding of $80 million in May, again led by Naspers.
The online food delivery and ordering segment is becoming a lot more competitive. Recently, its competitor Zomato also raised a $200 million funding from Alibaba’s Ant Financial. In December, home- grown cab aggregator- Ola, acquired Foodpanda and committed to pump in $200 million into the company. It is interesting to see how would round of funding play out in the market, which is already seeing increasing competition.