Swiggy plans to raise around $40 million

Swiggy online food-ordering start-up is in advanced talks to raise $35-40 million i.e Rs230-265 crore from internal investors Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and DST Partner Fund, according to four people aware of the matter.

Swiggy sought to be valued at about $100 million ahead of its latest fundraising, said an investor familiar with the deal.

It is not determine if Swiggy was able to raise the money at that valuation. The restaurant aggregator's third fund raise this year comes at a time when venture capital firms are closing their purses for cash-hungry food-tech companies and asking tough questions on their business models, high cost of operations and slow growth.

Swiggy, which competes with Foodpanda, TinyOwl and Zomato Order, previously raised Rs 105 crore from Norwest Venture, Accel and SAIF Partners in June. On the whole, Swiggy has raised a total Rs120 crore by 2015. According to sources, Swiggy handles about 14,000 orders on weekdays, using its own delivery fleet.

"Unlike our competition, we own our own feet and, therefore, have complete control of the end-to-end customer experience," said Reddy.

Swiggy is also helping restaurants listed on its food-ordering platform set up so called "cloud kitchens" in locations where demand is high, Reddy said. He further adds"These dark stores are heated units that serve as a delivery unit only with a limited menu. We are also piloting Swiggy Express, where we work with gourmet caterers and chefs to curate certain set of precooked meals."

"This way customer will get their deliveries in close to 15 minutes." Swiggy says that currently its average delivery time per order is about 37 minutes. Swiggy will have to overcome several hurdles food-tech companies have run into in recent months, mostly as they relied on heavy discounting using investor money to overcome increasing competition.