Swiggy and Zomato food delivery competitors in India are bringing back UrbanPiper by investing $24 million.
UrbanPiper, the restaurant management platform that processes 18 percent of online restaurant orders made in India, was able to secure $24 million through the latest round of financing from various investors, which include Swiggy and Zomato The three companies disclosed their plans on Monday.
The six-year-old company’s Series B financing was led by investors who have been with the company for a while, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. Pankaj Chaddah, a founder of Zomato, Ankit Nagori of Curefoods, Khadim Batti, and Vara Kumar are among the angel investors who have also invested in the latest round.
The majority of restaurants selling online tend to run firms that operate several food delivery companies. This usually means that the employees in these establishments must manage multiple management systems from different companies and meticulously monitor the flow of orders and inventory across every service.
UrbanPiper runs as a single-shop application, which syncs inventory as well as commerce flows between several services simultaneously.
“For numerous restaurants, it’s difficult for food delivery companies to provide their customers with the platform, the dashboard, and/or detailed analysis of billing and invoicing. We can provide this. “If we can all unite in a group, we’ll all be more effective and help move the industry forward.” Saurabh Gupta co-founder , chief executive officer and co-founder at UrbanPiper stated that. to TechCrunch when we spoke to him in an interview.
“These chains’ volumes were too high, and at that scale, they could not operate multiple dashboards.”
The company processes 14 million transactions per month, up from the 2 million it processed in the first quarter of 2019 in the year it received $7.5 million in Series A funding, he added.”We have also grown the number of restaurants we serve by 10 times,” said the CEO.
“Plenty of times, as a restaurant owner, you want to change your pricing, add different items, run special campaigns on new brands in certain locations; we offer all these flexibilities,” he added.
UrbanPiper has expanded to seven countries beyond India and has expanded to include some countries within the MENA region as well as EU regions. Due to the rise of food delivery services and restaurants around the world, they are also facing similar challenges, the CEO stated.
“The restaurant ecosystem is evolving rapidly with changing consumer needs,” said Shraeyansh Thakur, chief executive officer at Sequoia India, in a statement.
“Due to the impact of pandemics, which have impacted the sector, retailers are increasingly looking at digital channels to boost their bottom line. UrbanPiper is on the leading edge of this change and strategically placed to establish a network that connects digital players with merchants in the F&B ecosystem. Sequoia Capital India is excited to strengthen the relationship with UrbanPiper. UrbanPiper staff as they embark further on their vision to help restaurants across the world, and we are delighted to welcome Zomato and Swiggy to join this partnership.”
The company, which operates over 27,000 restaurants in eight countries, plans to use the new capital to open more regions in India, the Middle East, and Europe, with the goal of adding more than 200 000 restaurant establishments over the next two years.
“UrbanPiper is among our major partners because it allows us to easily interact with restaurants and expand faster with their point of sale solutions. In order to meet specific needs and requirements, the team has come up with ways to fill in the gaps and create a win-win situation for both the restaurant and Swiggy. We are thrilled about the possibilities for the market and are eager to expand our network of partners with their ongoing assistance,” said Sriharsha Majety, Chief Executive Officer of Swiggy, in an announcement.
This investment in UrbanPiper represents the most recent in a series of strategic investments by Swiggy as well as Zomato. Swiggy, based in Bengaluru, announced $180 million in funding for bike and taxi aggregator Rapido last week. Zomato has recently signed an agreement to purchase immediate delivery firm Blinkit and has also backed several other companies, such as logistics startup Shiprocket, savings app Magicpin, and fitness-focused startup Curefit.
