Ola Acquires Foodpanda India, to Invest $200 Million Into the Business

Ride-sharing platform Ola on Tuesday announced it has acquired Foodpanda's India business in exchange for Ola stock. The company also announced it will invest $200 million (approximately Rs. 1,282 crores) into Foodpanda's India business over an undisclosed period of time.

"Foodpanda India will benefit from Ola's scale and efficiencies as a platform, also having leveraged learnings from Delivery Hero's global best practices. Ola and Delivery Hero will continue to collaborate on building the online food delivery ecosystem in India," Ola said in a statement announcing the acquisition.

Saurabh Kochhar, who was the CEO of Foodpanda India until recently has decided to move on to pursue other opportunities, the company said, adding that Pranay Jivrajka, Founding Partner at Ola, has been appointed as interim CEO of this business unit.

Ola rival Uber already offers UberEATS online meal ordering and delivery platform, and with Foodpanda acquisition, one can expect Ola to offer a similar service within its app. The company had recently announced a tie-up with Zomato to enable food via from its in-car Ola Play platform.

"As one of India's pioneers in the food delivery space, Foodpanda has come to be a very efficient and profit-focused business over the last couple of years," Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-Founder and CEO at Ola said. "With Delivery Hero's global leadership and Ola's platform capabilities with unique local insights, this partnership is born out of strength."