[The Turning Point] From logistics to food delivery, how Swiggy found its sweetspot

The Turning Point is a series of short articles that focuses on the moment when an entrepreneur hit upon their winning idea. Today, we look at Bengaluru-based foodtech unicorn Swiggy.

[The Turning Point] From logistics to food delivery, how Swiggy found its sweetspot

Sunday October 27, 2019,

2 min Read

Today, Swiggy is synonymous with online food delivery in India. But, did you know that the startup’s parent company Bundl originally started out as in logistics? 


“We shut that down quickly,” recalls Sriharsha Majety, Co-founder and CEO, at Swiggy’s first tech conference Gigabytes in Bengaluru. 


Things with Bundl didn’t pan out as expected and the founder duo - Sriharsha and Nandan Reddy - saw a huge opportunity in ecommerce. Understanding the importance of having a core member with the right technical knowhow, Rahul Jaimini joined in as C0-founder and CTO. 


Swiggy

Founders of Swiggy. (L-R - Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini and Sriharsha Majety)




The three BITS-Pilani alumni started brainstorming for the ecommerce sector. Eventually, they landed on the idea of a foodtech app when they themselves wanted to get food delivered at their doorstep. They thought - why can't we just get any kind of food delivered to our doorstep whenever we want it? So, in late 2014, they decided to take the plunge. 


The trio identified three core problems for any consumer wanting to order food: unreliable deliveries, high minimum order-value, and poor restaurant selection. 


Sriharsha says,


“When we started out, we were still building, creating, and hacking our way forward to bring a synergy between tech and logistics. We needed to figure out if we were a tech company or a logistics platform. It was then that we decided that Swiggy will elevate the quality of life for urban consumers by offering unparalleled convenience.” 


At present, Swiggy one of the biggest food delivery startups in the country. It has completed over half a billion orders. Present in over 500 cities, Swiggy has on boarded around 147,000 restaurants and has over 2.1 lakh active delivery partners.


The startup claims its app has been downloaded more than 50,00,000 times. It has become a household name, almost indispensable for anyone and everyone who wants to order food online. 


Its technology platform processes over 40 billion messages every day.


“In the next 10 to 15 years, we aim to have 100 million customers transacting with us over 15 times a month,” says Sriharsha.


In the meantime, let’s Swiggy!



(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)