Zomato invests in Hyderabad-based home-cooked meals startup TinMen

Restaurant discovery and food ordering platform Zomato has made an undisclosed investment into Hyderabad-based home-cooked meals startup TinMen.

This is part of Zomato’s plans of moving towards hygienic food, for which it is exploring alliance with existing players to offer a larger variety of healthy meal options to users.

In a blog post, Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato says that both the companies will work together to provide access to better food for more people. This partnership will initially be in Hyderabad and then will be rolled out to the rest of the country.

“Through Tinmen’s unique operating model, they also generate a steady stream of revenue for their home-chefs - thereby creating earning opportunities for people who love to cook great food out of the comfort of their homes,” Deepinder adds.

Founded in January 2016 by Chaitanya Degala and Mukesh Manda, TinMen offers food cooked by home chefs across ten locations in Hyderabad - Madhapur, Hitec City, Kondapur, Gachibowli, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Begumpet, Miyapur, Manikonda and Kukatpally.

Unlike other FoodTech startups, TinMen does not take instant orders. Food has to be ordered at least the night before or scheduled for the week. It has around 40 chefs, who receive order the night before and cook accordingly to ensure there is now wastage of food.

"Our vision for Tinmen deeply resonates with Zomato's belief - that cooking should be a joyous activity for people and families, as oppose to it being a chore. We're glad to have been able to build a product that allows people access to healthy and delicious home-made food, without having to cook it. We have a deep amount of respect for what Deepinder and the team at Zomato have built and are excited to be aligned with Zomato's larger vision," Mukesh of TinMen says. 

He adds that the investment will not only help TinMen leverage Zomato's presence in Hyderabad, but also help it  scale to more cities faster.

TinMen currently delivers over 30,000 orders a month, with an average ticket size of Rs 90. Deepinder says that he see this number steadily multiplying over the next six to nine months.

TinMen raised an undisclosed amount from Lead Angel Network in January 2016. In April this year, it raised another round from MAPE Advisory Group, Sify co-founder R Ramaraj and Corvus Ventures, which is led by Mahesh Reddy of MAPE Advisory and its earlier investor Lead Angels.

Zomato has been on an aggressive expansion spree over the last year, to take on rivals in the fast-growing foodtech space.

Last week, it announced that it turned profitable in its core advertising business across all markets and also announced a zero commission model for select restaurants on its platform.

This comes a year after Zomato significantly reduced its cash burn by 81% to $12 million in FY17 and increased its revenues by 80%.

In a bid to expand its delivery business and take on larger rivals such as Swiggy, Zomato acquired Runnr earlier this month.