Homegrown cab hailing major Ola is reportedly in discussion to acquire well known food delivery brand Freshmenu. The development comes barely days after Ola acquired popular transportation app Ridlr for undisclosed amount.
Both Ola and Freshmenu have declined to comment on the news report.
It seems that the cab-hailing major is currently in an acquisition spree as the investors are mostly likely turning the heat on the company to deliver profits. It must be noted that Ola, which is a unicorn company, has never had a strong penchant for acquisitions. During seven long years that it has been in operation the Bengaluru based company has acquired only handful of companies.
Ola’s costliest and high-profile acquisition till date has been Foodpanda, which it acquired in December last year from Foodpanda’s parent company (based in Germany).
Is Ola getting serious about food delivery business?
The Freshmenu’s acquisition will certainly add on to Foodpanda’s business. In separate news, Ola is reportedly in talks to raise fresh funds for Foodpanda. All these collective signals strongly suggest that the cab hailing major is strongly vouching for its food delivery business to become a strong profit generator in coming years.
Ola’s acquisition of Foodpanda along with Uber Eat’s launch last year has already created lot of buzz in the food delivery industry. The cab hailing companies sudden interest in the food delivery space may have prompted Zomato and Swiggy to go for a fresh fundraising spree. Both companies have recently raised substantial amount of funds from existing as well as new investors.
However, most industry experts claim that it won’t be easy for Ola and Uber to penetrate into the food delivery market, since Zomato and Swiggy are already established brand in the market.