Two months after being acquired by Indian cab aggregator Ola, Foodpanda has announced its plans to invest Rs 400 crore in India to scale up technology, to ensure seamless experience for partner restaurants, users and riders across all the metros and other key cities in the country. Additionally, the company plans to hire 25,000 delivery riders in the next 12 to 15 months.
FoodPanda will focus on strengthening relationships with partner restaurants, by enabling them with robust backend technology and providing assistance through their own delivery network.
FoodPanda claims that a strong technology backend and a dense logistics network would also ensure better services for present and prospective customers. The investment will focus on creating transparent, more efficient and time-saving procedures for delivery logistics. The investment would also entail partner and rider recognition programs for better performance.
“Creating a strong delivery ecosystem backed by technology is one of the most fundamental needs of the Indian food tech industry. We at Foodpanda recognize this and are investing Rs 400 crore to further strengthen our delivery network across all the metros and other key cities. We are also ramping up our last mile connect by hiring 25,000 delivery riders. This is in line with our go-to market strategy to make a difference in the food ordering experience of our restaurant partners, customers and riders,” Pranay Jivrajka, CEO, Foodpanda India said.
Betting on increasing demand, Foodpanda is gearing itself to significantly grow the percentage of orders that are fulfilled by the depth and expanse of its delivery services.
Foodpanda currently has menus from 15,000+ restaurants across 150+ cities in India available on its app and website. In December 2017, Ola acquired foodpanda with a commitment for infusion of funds to the tune of Rs 1,300 crore from parent ANI Technologies.
It currently competes with the likes of Swiggy, Zomato and UberEATS. Both Swiggy and Zomato have recently seen infusion of funds. Swiggy raised $100 million in Series F funding from Naspers and Meituan-Dianping last week. A few days before that, Zomato had raised $200 million from Alibaba’s Ant Financial.