Swiggy Has Raised $100 Million in Funding From Naspers, Meituan Dianping

Swiggy on Thursday announced Series F funding from existing investors Naspers, and others including new investors Meituan Dianping, a Chinese group buying website headquartered in Beijing. The company announced it has raised $100 million, roughly Rs. 642 crore, just days after rival Zomato is said to have raised $200 million in funding from China's Ant Financial. In its announcement, Swiggy said that it will use the funding to introduce "a host of unique products and services."

Swiggy will also make investments in its New Supply business line - the first launch of this line was Swiggy Access through which the company offered cloud kitchens for restaurant partners. The new capital will be used for further expansion, and it will also invest in areas of "data-driven self-learning systems that leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence." That buzzword soup suggests that Swiggy wants to improve its recommendations and delivery time predictions further, in order to drive the speed and volume of deliveries.

"As India’s leading food ordering and delivery platform with a network of thousands of restaurants and millions of users, Swiggy has become part of consumers’ everyday lives," said Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy. "With this funding, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core."

In its last round of funding, also led by Naspers, Swiggy raised $80 million roughly a year ago, at which time the company had claimed a six-fold year-over-year growth in revenues, and stated that it had over 12,000 restaurant partners across eight cities. Now, Swiggy says it posted a record increase of 500 percent in revenues in the last financial year, and order volumes nearly double since the previous funding in May 2017, with operations now in 10 cities, and over 25,000 restaurant partners.

"Swiggy has continued strong growth through 2017 and now has a clear lead in the market," added Larry Illg, CEO, Naspers Ventures. "The company’s performance is all the more impressive given the intense competition we see in the food ordering and delivery business in India. Swiggy has shown it has the ability to rise above the competition and create long-term relationships with its users."

Aside from Zomato, other companies that are active in the food delivery space include longtime veterans Foodpanda India, and more recently, Uber Eats.