Swiggy raises $80M in Series E funding led by Naspers

Swiggy, the Bengaluru-based food-delivery platform, has raised $80 million Series E funding led by Naspers. Existing investors Accel India, SAIF Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Harmony Partners and Norwest Partners participated in this round of funding. The funding will primarily be used to grow Swiggy’s product and technology.

The team also announced that the new round of funding will help Swiggy in introducing a suite of new product and service offerings to enhance its customer experience.

The Bengaluru-based foodtech company also added that they are looking to double their headcount, increase investments across core engineering, automation, data sciences, machine learning and personalisation. Ashutosh Sharma, head of investments in India for Naspers will join the Swiggy board.

Speaking of the investment, Ashutosh said that looking at Swiggy’s growth in a highly competitive market, the Naspers team was impressed with its ability to build a sustainable business, earning consumer trust through a reliable first-party delivery technology. This, he added, positions Swiggy for success.

“Naspers was attracted to the company’s exceptional execution in disrupting online food ordering and delivery in India while many players are struggling to create new business,” says Ashutosh.

A press statement released by the company states that Swiggy has seen six-fold growth in revenues over the last year and industry-best repeat orders.

Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO, Swiggy believes that in the past three years, Swiggy has been able to change the way India eats. He also believes that as the market leader, Swiggy is leveraging their understanding of the Indian consumer and the gaps in the market and thus introducing disruptive and highly differentiated service offerings; making online food ordering and delivery more seamless and reliable to users everywhere.

The team claims to have an average delivery time of 37 minutes. Swiggy is present in eight cities - Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai. Last year September, Swiggy had raised an additional funding of $15 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners and before that it had raised Series C funding of $35 million from Singapore-based RB investments and New York-based Harmony Partners.

With this Series E funding of $80 million, the total funding stands at $155.5 million. Currently, Swiggy had also launched its internet restaurant as a test in Bengaluru, Koramangala. It is at a rather interesting time that Swiggy has raised funds.

UberEats launched in Mumbai earlier this month, reports also speculate that Zomato is in talks to run its own delivery fleet – by means of acquiring Bengaluru-based Runnr. As opposed to both UberEats and Zomato, Swiggy has the upper hand in terms of market share and also being the strongest player delivery wise.

UberEats, is present only in Mumbai, and reports suggests that the margins charged by UberEats are higher than the other players. Will this fresh round of funding raised by Swiggy, give it an edge over the other players? Also Swiggy might also focus on expanding its cloud kitchen base, thus coming in direct competition to FreshMenu.