Ola, the rival of Uber in India has acquired food-delivery startup Foodpanda India Pvt. Ltd from its German parent Delivery Hero AG. Ola, operated by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd has infused $200 million in an all-stock deal after which Foodpanda’s India business will be transferred to Ola.
The details of the deal were not disclosed, however, ola, which hails around two million rides daily is indeed one of the best buyers. In October, Ola closed a $1.1 billion funding round led by Tencent and SoftBank, after which it has been constantly looking forward to distinguishing itself from Uber’s business in India.
With an investment of $200 million in Foodpanda India, they will get a claim of 12,000 restaurant partners in over 100 cities. FoodPanda was acquired by Delivery Hero from Rocket Internet at the end of last year with a view to expanding its business into Asia, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe where Foodpanda is present.
With this deal, Ola will compete directly with food delivery startups like Zomato and Swiggy. However, on the other end, Ola’s biggest rival in the country, Uber is making consistent progress through its unit UberEATS, which currently active in 27 countries including 7 Indian cities. Ola did come up with a food delivery business unit Ola Cafe in 2014 but shut it down a year after its launch.
According to Ola, this partnership will assist Foodpanda India in becoming one of the most favored online food delivery service in the country. Also, Saurabh Kochhar, who was the CEO of Foodpanda India until recently, has decided to depart to pursue other opportunities. In the interim period, Pranay Jivrajka, a founding partner at Ola will handle the responsibility of being the CEO of the business unit.
The Delivery Hero Group is confident that their partnership with Ola will help them to strengthen markets in the country.