Online food business M&As heating up in India
02 Aug 2018
Things are cooking up in the online food ordering and delivery business, with well-funded companies including Ola, Uber, Swiggy and Zomato planning to acquire smaller but innovative outfits.
The latest to do so is Ola, which is learnt to be in talks with Holachef Hospitality, a Mumbai-based company that shut shop about three months ago.
Foodpanda, which Ola had acquired a few months earlier from its German parent, is expected to acquire Holachef soon. ANI Technologies, which operates the Ola taxi-hire brand, is planning to acquire other private food-related companies.
Holachef was set up about four years ago and offered services in Mumbai and Pune. It had raised funds from high net worth individuals, but suddenly stopped operations recently.
Several other food delivery startups are also believed to have shut down operations recently. According to media reports, they include Twigly, Spoonjoy, TinyOwl, Yumist and Dazo.
Other food delivery service companies are however, raising funds and are bailing out the smaller entities. Zomato, which raised about $200 million in February, plans to get some more funding. Swiggy raised about $210 million last month.
Both companies are also expanding rapidly. And Swiggy and Zomato each employ more than 50,000 highly-paid executives.