Swiggy to raise $900 mn in fresh funding from Naspers

Bengaluru-based food delivery firm Swiggy has introduced a two-day paid monthly period time-off policy for its female delivery partners.

Upon opting for the time-off, the delivery partners will receive a minimum earnings guarantee.

“In 2016 we onboarded our first female delivery partner in Pune. Since then we have been striving to build inclusivity and diversity across the platform with a commitment towards increasing the number of women delivery partners in Swiggy’s delivery fleet,” shared a blogpost from the food delivery brand.

It also mentioned that to bring about necessary changes, it ensures to stay cognizant of the challenges its women delivery partners face, especially with respect to access and safety. “Creating an environment that encourages women to consider delivering with Swiggy is a priority, and here are some of our recent efforts in that direction,” it added further.

As per the statement, several women who are interested in on-boarding with Swiggy either lack access to personal motor vehicles, or don’t have a driver’s license at all.

“We’re addressing this issue in two ways. First, assuring them that delivery by bicycle is a viable option for short-distance orders. In fact, 22% of our women delivery partners deliver on bicycles. Second, we’re also working with electric mobility partners to facilitate EV cycles and bikes (sub 25kmph) on rent,” it added.

Out of 200,000 delivery partners that Swiggy has, about 1,000 of them are women delivery partners; interestingly 99 per cent of them are under the age of 45 and 35 per cent of them want to continue further their studies.

Noida-based student housing startup Placio has raised $50,000 in seed funding for its new venture in subscription-based food delivery system.

The company acquired a subscription-based food startup Paco Meals. With this move, it will help Paco Meals with the technology.

The takeover of Paco Meal provides Placio with an edge of talented culinary professionals,  and state-of-the-art facilities to develop menus that meet a multitude of tastes and deliver food beyond expectations.

“Placio intends to transform student living with nutritious and tasty food. With our deep understanding of the student market, we realise that nutrition and food play an important role in transformative living and learning experience. This is part of our vision for making students feels safe, involved and inspired. The good news is that Placio now extends this outlook to even students living in non-Placio properties. Taking over Paco Meals will now make us realize our dreams -- by an unrestricted provision of meals to all students in other student housing also," said Rohit Pateria and Ankush Arora, co-founders of Placio.

Paco Meals focuses on ‘3As appearance, aroma and appetite’ targeting delicious, innovative, sustainable, healthy food options. The company ensures the menu will not be repeated at least for 3 months and also brings the ‘taste of home’ to meals as students are invited to bring their favourite recipes from home, especially those for vegetarian and ethnic dishes.

“We understand the needs of bachelors and students as we have experienced the unappetising meals’ during our stay in college hostels. This unpleasant experience led to my startup in 2016 to provide wholesome and nutritious meals at subsidized prices for bachelors and students who were on a lean budget. Placio today has given me an opportunity to provide the residents and students with hygienic and nutritious meals filled with variety and flavour at all Placio’s housing in Delhi, Greater Noida, Noida Laxmi Nagar, Indore, and Lucknow," said Nitin Joshi and Parul Tusele, co-owners of Paco Meals.

Blume Ventures-backed MonkeyBox Food Tech Pvt. Ltd, which delivers nutritious food to school children in Bengaluru, has acquired 75 In A Box in an all-stock deal.

In May, MonkeyBox had also bought juice maker RawKing to add fresh juices in its meal offerings for school children.

Founded by Chetan Pal, Dinakar Raju, Jayesh Sada and Veeraraghavan Vasudevan in August 2016, Bengaluru-based 75 In A Box delivers healthy food to offices.

MonkeyBox co-founder Sanjay Rao said “The acquisition is a strategic move for us as we try to expand our product offering to adults. 75 in a Box has considerable experience in the adult health food sector and is a perfect fit for us. Raju and Vasudevan, along with a team of 10 members, have joined MonkeyBox. 75 In a Box will continue to operate under the same brand, but will be a subsidiary of MonkeyBox. Services will be officially launched on 2 January across the city, including Koramangala, HSR Layout, Indiranagar, Whitefield, Sarjapur, JP Nagar and CBD. We were not only providing curated world cuisine for fitness enthusiasts, but also healthy food for people with normal diets. We were also active on food delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy.”

MonkeyBox was incorporated in November 2015 by Rao, Kannambadi and Vijay Bharadwaj, all former staffers of tech giant Wipro. In November 2016, the company had raised an undisclosed amount in seed investment from early-stage investor Blume Ventures.

Food ordering platform foodpanda has partnered with Freecharge to offer swift and secure digital payment option to food lovers.

foodpanda customers across over 200 cities can now seamlessly pay for their food orders in less than 10 seconds using Freecharge as their digital wallet.

Through this partnership Freecharge will enable over 10 million foodpanda customers to adopt digital wallet.

“We're delighted to have partnered with Freecharge. The strategic partnership will allow us to offer an excellent and fuss free payment experience to our customers. With this association, we share a common goal of keeping a swift, clean and convenient experience at the fore front for our millions of users,” shares Saurabh Kochhar – CEO, foodpanda.

foodpanda reaches out to over 10 million customers every month and has a restaurant partner network which is over 12000 strong.

Adding to the same lines, Sudeep Tandon, Chief Business Officer, Freecharge, says, “At Freecharge, we aim to make every mundane transaction delightful for our customers, and integrating the Freecharge wallet on foodpanda is a perfect way to make customer’s payment experience frictionless and convenient. We will continue to offer new avenues to our patrons to help them realise the need to go cashless for their daily payments.”

Freecharge’s endeavour is to influence the daily payment habits of consumers and offer an assortment of merchants to help them move away from cash. 

Connecting people to the food they love, Uber Eats, the on-demand food delivery app, today revealed an all-new global brand refresh. The new look of the app is even more vibrant, lively, delightful and aptly reflects the endless possibilities of food that the app offers.

Commenting on the brand refresh Bhavik Rathod, Head of Uber Eats India said, “It has been a great journey for us since we launched Uber Eats in India earlier this year. At Uber Eats our aim is to lead ‘the future of food’ in India by breaking the stereotype of food delivery and helping restaurants grow their business with delivery, as well as actionable data and insights. We hope our consumers in India love the new Uber Eats.”

In India, Uber Eats launched in May this year with Mumbai as its first city. Since then, the service has expanded to 6 more cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Chennai, Chandigarh and Hyderabad, with a network of over 5000 restaurant partners across these cities.