UberEATS, the food delivery unit of Uber, had held talks with Nasper-backed Indian food delivery startup, Swiggy, a few months ago, reported Axios. However, the acquisition could not materialize and now Swiggy is reportedly closing a fresh funding round from Chinese investor and WeChat owner Tencent.
An another report by Bloomberg has suggested that Uber is in early talks to buy UK-based food-delivery company Deliveroo for several billion dollars. Deliveroo is an Unicorn food delivery startup based out of London and is UK’s biggest online food delivery firm valued at $1.1 billion.
In January this year, the Deliveroo was said to be entering Indian market though no substabtial development happened since then. The company was said to be in the process of hiring a country head along with setting up a full-fledged team in India.
It is to be noted that in this year, UberEats has made two acquisitions and both in the US. In May UberEats acquired Texas-based orderTalk, which offers online ordering software and call center solutions for the restaurant and hospitality industries. This was followed by acquisition of New York-based restaurant, Ando, that offers delivery services to its users.
In India, UberEats is said to be recording 50% month-on-month growth in May on the back of aggressive promotional pricing.
About Swiggy, the Bangalore-based food delivery startup Swiggy has reportedly been in talks with couple of investors including China’s Tencent and Japan’s SoftBank, since November. This year alone, Swiggy has raise a handsome $310 million from two different rounds of $210 Mn in June and $100 Mn in February, which was led by Naspers and DST Global (June).
Notably, both Swiggy and Deliveroo have DST Global as a common investor. Deliveroo has raised a total of about $860 Mn in funding over six rounds with last funding came from a Series F round in September, 2017.
In August, Sriharsha Majety, CEO & co-founder of Swiggy, has said that the company is experimenting with few hyperlocal categories, which is among several new initiatives that the India’s largest online food ordering startup has planned for going beyond just food ordering and delivering.
Source: IndianWeb2
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