Naspers Garnishes $80 Million to Swiggy’s Platter

SWIGGY, THE Bengaluru-based food ordering and delivering company, recently received a USD 80 million funding led by Naspers. The previous investors include Accel India, SAIF Partners India, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harmony Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. BW Hotelier got to speak with Srivats TS, Vice President of Marketing at Swiggy to find out what makes them so different.

“This investment by Naspers is further testimony to Swiggy’s vision and performance” said Srivats began by telling us. On asking about Swiggy, he added, “Swiggy has become a loved consumer brand by bringing convenience, choice, reliability and a great experience to food-ordering. This has resulted in a six-fold growth in revenues and a four-fold growth in orders volumes. More than 12,000 restaurant partners across eight cities leverage Swiggy to reach new customers and increase their sales. These numbers endorse the tremendous value we have been able to provide to all our stakeholders.”

According to a report on the Indian Digital Economy published by RedSeer, a Bengaluru-based research and advisory firm, Swiggy fullfills a 100 percent of its order through its own fleet, which is larger than Zomato and Food Panda.

“The new funds will propel the next phase of Swiggy’s growth by introducing a suite of new product and service offerings to enhance its superlative customer experience. To support this, Swiggy will double its technology headcount and increase investments across core engineering, automation, data sciences, machine learning and personalisation” said Srivats .

“Swiggy will continue to invest in our vision of changing the way India eats. As the market leader, we are leveraging our deep understanding of the Indian consumer and the gaps in the market to introduce disruptive and highly differentiated service offerings; making online food ordering and delivery more seamless and reliable to users,” said Srivats commenting on the company’s future plans.

However, according to a report by Economic Times, the platform has been grappling with bringing down cost of delivery as it posted 65 fold increases in losses for FY 2015-16 at Rs 137.18 crore from Rs 2.12 crore in FY 2014-15. The company has since tweaked the cost to consumer by levying delivery charges and surge charges.