6 food tech startups that spearhead the Indian playfield After tech startups, food tech avatar is the latest buzz in the ecosystem.
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India is a country of food lovers and mushrooming food tech startups are here to quench the ever-rising demand of Indians for food. In today's time, food tech startups have become the latest buzzword and they are slowly but steadily gaining the spotlight in the startup ecosystem. There was a time when Zomato or Foodpanda used to rule the food tech industry, but now if you are away from the Internet for a couple of days then you might feel the grip loosening over the emerging food tech trend in the country. If we look at the figures, market size of food in India is expected to reach Rs 42 lakh crore by 2020 and food tech are gearing up to tap this opportunity to the fullest.
Entrepreneur India has penned down leading food tech startups for its readers which they must watch out for in 2015.
1. Zomato:
This restaurant search and discovery app provides detailed restaurant information such as menus, contact details, pictures, geocoded maps, and user reviews, for 1.4 million restaurants. Founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal, Zomato is headquartered in India, and employs over 3,000 people across 22 countries. Zomato's core content features include restaurant information such as scanned menus and photos, sourced by its massive feet-on-street team across cities. Zomato had raised $ 60 million in a fresh round of funding led by Singapore investment company Temasek with participation from existing investor Vy Capital. This takes Zomato's total funding to $ 225 million; and it comes from a close set of only four investors, namely, Info Edge, Sequoia India, Vy Capital, and now Temasek.
2. Foodpanda:
Founded in 2012, Foodpanda is known as the largest online food ordering platform. It is one of the leading global food delivery marketplaces, active in 39 countries on five continents. It enables its users to order food online and provide them with the widest gastronomic range from which they can choose their favorite meal on the web or via the app. Company has recently raised $ 100 million led by Goldman Sachs. Together with the last funding of $110 million, in March 2015, Foodpanda has now raised over $ 310 million since its launch in 2012.
3. Swiggy:
Inspired by the thought of providing a complete food ordering and delivery solution to customers, Swiggy was founded by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy and Rahul Jaimini in August 2014. With a single window for ordering from a wide range of restaurants, Swiggy swears by its fleet of delivery personnel for pick-up orders and delivers it to its target customers who are working professionals between the age group of 18 and 36. "Our ultimate aim is to deliver quality food to patrons seamlessly in India," said Nandan Reddy, Co-founder Swiggy. Bengaluru-based startup recently secured $16.5 million in a Series B round of funding from Norwest Venture Partners, existing investors Accel Partners and SAIF Partners and a global investment entity.
4. Tiny Owl:
Founded in 2014 by five IITians, Harshvardhan Mandad, Saurabh Goyal, Tanuj Khandelwal, Shikhar Paliwal, and Gaurav Choudhary, Tiny Owl is the fastest food ordering mobile app that lets users order food from restaurants around them. Currently operational in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune, Tiny Owl has successfully made its presence felt in the online ordering segment after latest funding of Rs 50 crore from existing investors; they were led by existing investors, namely, Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners. In Feburary, startup raised Rs 100 crore led by Matrix Partners India with participation from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners.
5: InnerChef:
Founded in April 2015 by serial entrepreneurs, Rajesh Sawhney, Bal DiGhent (of the DiGhent cafe fame in Gurgaon) and Sanjeev Singhal, InnerChef is one of the fastest growing food tech venture in India. InnerChef's food is inspired by different cuisines across the world, which includes European, Mediterranean and modern Indian cuisines. Startup is a first-of-its-kind hyperlocal desserts marketplace where home bakers and neighbourhood bakeries can offer their products to millions of customers across the country. They are currently serving their offering in South Delhi, Gurgaon and now in Bangalore. By the end of the year, they will be expanding their presence in 6 cities. Recently, venture had also raised pre-series A round of Rs 11cr ($1.66mn) led by the leading investors across the globe.
6. iTiffin
With the goal to enable people to stay healthy and fit, Robin Uthappa teamed up with Tapan Kumar Das, Ryan Fernando and Arjun Gautham to setup iTiffin. Be it food for general wellness, weight loss, diabetes or high protein, at iTiffin its users will get it all, delivered at their doorstep. Venture provides its users with a wide range of healthy and nutritious food products like fresh meals, organic salads and packaged snacks. Venture had also raised $1 million in its seed round of funding.
