Swiggy and Zomato, food delivery rivals in India, back UrbanPiper with a $24 million funding TechCrunch
UrbanPiper, a restaurant management platform that handles 18% of all online food orders in India, has raised $24 million in a new round of funding from several investors including Swiggy and Zomato, the three companies said Monday.
The six-year-old startup’s Series B funding is led by existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. Pankaj Chaddah, founder of Zomato, Ankit Nagori of Curefoods and Khadim Bhatti and Vara Kumar are among the angels who have also invested in the new round.
The majority of restaurants that sell online tend to stay in business with many food delivery startups. This often means that employees at those restaurants have to manage management applications from multiple companies and carefully monitor order and inventory flows across all services.
UrbanPiper operates a single-store application that synchronizes inventory and commerce flows with multiple services at the same time.
“For many restaurants, it is not feasible for food delivery companies to provide them with systems, dashboards, detailed analysis of invoicing. We can deliver on that. When we all come together, we can all do better work and propel the industry forward,” Saurabh Gupta, co-founder and CEO of UrbanPiper, told TechCrunch in an interview. question.
“These chains, their volume is too high, and at that scale, they can’t run many dashboards.”
The startup processes 14 million orders a month, up from 2 million orders processed in 2019, when it raised $7.5 million in Series A funding, he said. He added: “We have also increased the number of restaurants serving by 10 times.
“A lot of times as a restaurant owner you want to change prices, add different items, run special campaigns for new brands in certain locations, we offers all of this flexibility.
UrbanPiper has also expanded to seven countries outside of India, including several in MENA and EU regions. With the rise of food delivery companies, restaurants globally are facing similar challenges, he said.
Shraeyansh Thakur, Principal at Sequoia India, said: “The restaurant ecosystem is evolving rapidly with changing consumer needs.
“Due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, merchants now increasingly want to adopt digital channels and upgrade their operations. UrbanPiper is at the forefront of this digital transformation and is strategically positioned to build the infrastructure that connects digital players with merchants in the F&B ecosystem. Sequoia Capital India is delighted to deepen its partnership with the UrbanPiper team as they further build on their mission to empower restaurants globally and welcome Zomato and Swiggy to the partnership. this work. ”
The startup, which manages more than 27,000 restaurant locations across eight countries, plans to roll out the new funds to launch in more regions across India, MENA and the EU and aims to expand to more than 200,000 restaurant locations for the next two years, it said.
“UrbanPiper is one of our key partners that allows us to seamlessly interact with restaurants and scale faster through their point of sale solutions. Addressing specific needs, the team is always looking to bridge the gap by creating a win-win for both the restaurant and Swiggy. We are excited about the market potential and look forward to expanding our partner network with their continued support,” said Sriharsha Majety, chief executive officer of Swiggy, in a statement.
The investment in UrbanPiper is the latest strategic backing from Swift and Zomato. Last week, Bengaluru-based Swiggy said led a $180 million funding round in bike and taxi aggregator Rapido. Zomato, recently reached an agreement to acquire the instant delivery company Blinkitsupported several other companies including logistics startup Shiprocket, savings app Magicpin, and fitness startup Curefit.
