Do you wish to have a delicious bite of blueberry cheesecake in the middle of the day at work or a hearty biryani meal for lunch?
Moving out of your house, facing the relentless traffic, unending queues at the restaurants and cafes, waiting for your order, etc., sounds demotivating as always. In fact, they were some of the major hindrances between a person and his/her food. However, things have changed since August 2014.
Yes, with the birth of Swiggy, ordering food has been revolutionized in India; it became as easy as one wants it to be.
With the launch of Swiggy, often dubbed as one of India’s fastest-growing companies, ordering food at the home, office, or even while throwing a party seems like a breeze. Swiggy is a hyper-local food delivery application founded by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini in Bengaluru’s neighborhood, Koramangala. Swiggy has been quite popular even in its early days, it witnessed an exemplary expansion and is carrying on its successful legacy till now!
Swiggy—Latest News
Swiggy—About
Swiggy—Founders & Team
Swiggy—How It All Started!
Swiggy—Startup Launch
Swiggy—Business & Revenue Model
Swiggy—Funding & Investors
Swiggy—Growth
Swiggy - ESOPs
Swiggy—Competitors
Swiggy—Challenges
Swiggy—Awards & Recognition
Swiggy—FAQ's
Swiggy—Conclusion
Swiggy—Latest News
October 27, 2021 - Swiggy has successfully allotted ESOP and MSOP options worth Rs 329 crores to its employees and top executives.
October 12, 2021 - Swiggy plans to foray into social commerce with the launch of Swiggy Bazaar, which is set to be launched in a couple of months.
October 6, 2021 - Swiggy announces that it will hold 2 ESOP liquidity events worth $35 Mn – $40 Mn in the next 2 years.
August 6, 2021 - Swiggy joins hands with Reliance BP Mobility and others to make a breakthrough in the electronic vehicle (EV) ecosystem.
June 30, 2021 - Vivek Sunder resigns from the post of Chief Operating Officer (COO), Sriharsha Majety to take his place. This is the second top-level resignation since Rahul Jaimini left the company.
May 2020 - Rahul Jaimini, co-founder and CTO of Swiggy, puts down his papers and joins Pesto Tech as the co-founder of the Edtech startup.
Swiggy—About
| Company Name | Swiggy |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bangalore |
| Sector | Food Delivery |
| Founders | Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Valuation | $5.5 billion (July 2021) |
| Website | swiggy.com |
Swiggy is a food delivery platform in its core, the services of which can be accessed from Android and IOS devices, and through the website. It partners with a wide range of restaurants and provides easy access to diverse food dishes from varying cuisines. Furthermore, it also accepts feedback and ratings from the customers that help others pick their restaurants and the choices of dishes wisely.
As soon as a delivery is done, the customer is entitled to give feedback, rate the food, and the delivery services. The company uses these data to improve its services.
Swiggy essentially started as a food delivery service and saw quite an expansion. It already had its operation in 100 cities in March 2019, when the company decided to start with general product deliveries under Swiggy Stores. Furthermore, Swiggy launched Swiggy Go. later that year, in September, to help the customers pick up and drop off food items, documents, parcels, and more.
The company’s target audience is people who use smartphones regularly, aged between 18-35 years.
The tagline of Swiggy is, ‘Swiggy Karo, Phir Jo Chahe Karo!’ which appears in the advertisements of Swiggy.
Ashwini
Swiggy—Founders & Team
- Sriharsha Majety is the CEO and co-founder of Swiggy. He had completed B.E in Electrical and Electronics along with M.Sc in Physics from BITS Pilani in the year 2008. Sriharsha then went to study the CFA program from the CFA Institute and managed to complete level II of the program. After this, he considered enrolling for an MBA in Finance and choose IIM, Calcutta, from where he graduated in 2011. Before Swiggy, Majety worked as the recruitment coordinator for IIM and was also a part of the rates trading Desk in London at Nomura International. In the year 2013, he co-founded Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd along with Nandan Reddy, which became the cradle for Swiggy.
- Nandan Reddy is the co-founder of Swiggy. He is also a BITS Pilani alumnus, who pursued M.Sc from the same college and completed it in 2010. Reddy worked as the head of the operations of social media at SourcePilani, the first BPO for the rural India, for about 2 years. He was the founding partner of Zurna, a restaurant in Hyderabad, after which he co-founded Bundl, which later on led to Swiggy.
- Rahul Jaimini, who worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Myntra, joined Majety and Nandan to build the application for Swiggy. Rahul had completed a Dual Degree from IIT Kharagpur in Computer Science & Engineering in 2010. He had also worked for companies like Philips Research and Netapp.
Swiggy—How It All Started!
In the year 2013, Sriharsha and Nandan came together to build a company that would empower courier services across the country, and would stand as a logistics solution. They named it Bundl Technologies Private Limited. However, Bundl did not turn out successful and forced the founders to shut down the business in 2014. Following its failure, Majety began his research and discovered much potential in the food industry. This led to the birth of Swiggy is an online food delivery company. They met Rahul Jaimini, who helped them build the software, and the company was finally founded in August 2014.
When Swiggy came to the market, the food delivery sector already had applications like Foodpanda, Tinyowl, and Ola Café. Foodpanda and Tinyowl were later acquired by Ola Cabs and Zomato respectively, and Ola café was eventually shut down, just barely a year old. While all these companies struggled, Swiggy started in 2014 with 6 delivery boys providing food from 25 restaurants, and at the end of its first year, in March 2015, the company served 1 million orders per month. This is how the journey started for the foodtech giant.
Swiggy—Startup Launch
Swiggy started in July 2014, as a food delivery app. Eventually, the company expanded in size and started growing at a pace of 25% month on month and served around 100 cities, as of March 2019. Swiggy had also started Swiggy Stores and Swiggy Go., later on in 2019, both of which saw quite a boost, especially after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Swiggy is now a foodtech unicorn and boasts of over 1,30,000 delivery partners, which was around 2,20,000 before the pandemic, and boasts of delivering around 1.45 million orders in a day, as of October 27, 2021.
Swiggy—Business & Revenue Model
Swiggy works on the business model of hyperlocal on-demand food delivery. It gets restaurants as partners and works as a bridge between them and the customers. The platform of Swiggy is powered by state-of-the-art technology and works as a single point of contact. Swiggy partners with restaurants and shops, grocery suppliers, and delivery providers.
The app displays a broad list of restaurants and their menu along with their pricing for the customers to order their choice of dishes to be delivered at their doorsteps. Besides, it also provides the option for the customers to buy fresh supplies and deliver other products and necessities, as they might require from time to time.
The key activities of Swiggy may be summed up as:
- Management of payment and delivery processes.
- Forming partnerships with retail shops and eateries.
- Hiring delivery providers and suppliers.
The key resources of Swiggy include:
- Local shops and restaurants
- Technology
- Delivery providers
If we look at the customer segmentation of Swiggy, then the major customer segments of the company are:
- People who don't prefer to go to restaurants and eateries.
- People who want to order food and drinks, groceries, and other daily needs and essentials online and get the same delivered to their doorsteps.
- People who want to buy products online or via phone and get the same delivered by delivery agents.
The value propositions of Swiggy include:
- Food delivery without any restrictions in orders.
- An effective online payment system.
- No minimum order limits.
- A wide range of payment methods.
Swiggy has expanded its streams of revenue throughout the years. Here are some prominent streams that the company currently draws its revenue from:
- Delivery charges
Swiggy obtains its primary revenue from its customers. The company levies a nominal delivery fee that starts from Rs. 20 and keeps on increasing, depending on the total order value. Furthermore, Swiggy also raises the charges when the demands are high or during unusual weather conditions.
- Commissions
A major part of Swiggy's revenue stream is from the commissions it receives. These commissions are collected from the restaurants in order to generate sales leads and deliver the food items with the help of Swiggy’s fleet. The restaurants have to pay 15% to 25% commission on each order that is placed from Swiggy’s website.
- Advertising
Swiggy also earns some revenue with:
- Banner Promotions – Swiggy encourages restaurants to promote their brand via displays ads on its app. This helps all the restaurants that are partnered with Swiggy from different regions, to receive considerable visibility against the payment they make.
- Priority listing of restaurants – Swiggy has an option for priority listing and in them, the company includes select restaurants against premium rates. A restaurant has to pay higher if it wants to be displayed ahead of its peers.
- Swiggy Access
Swiggy launched the all-new and innovative program, Swiggy Access. This is a completely fresh idea modeled on the cloud kitchen concept. With this facility, Swiggy offers ready-to-use kitchen spaces, equipped with the basic setup and amenities for its restaurant partners to take advantage of them and expand in the neighborhoods that they haven't operated before.
Swiggy Access brings food nearer to its customers by helping the restaurants set up their kitchens in newer locations and thereby, boosting the delivery speed of the orders.
- Swiggy Super
Swiggy also introduced its membership program called Swiggy Super in 2018 - Bit, Bite, and Binge plans, with which the customers get tons of benefits, including priority issue resolution, no surge prices, and more, on different subscriptions.
- Swiggy Go
Swiggy Go is another service that Swiggy launched in 2019 to offer fast pick and drop service, which added a new revenue stream for the company.
- Instamart
Instamart was launched by Swiggy in August 2020. This new platform was designed to serve as a quick grocery delivery medium that promises to deliver groceries within 45 minutes of placing the order. Instamart was first started in Gurgaon and is currently serving the Indian cities of Gurgaon and Bangalore and is planning for expansion.
- Swiggy Genie
Swiggy Genie was expanded in April 2020, following the nationwide lockdown. The Genie service from Swiggy was developed as an on-demand pick and drop service for the customers to send or receive foods and other goods.
- Swiggy Bazaar
Social commerce is the new vertical that Swiggy is aiming to foray into after Genie and Instamart, as disclosed by the company on October 12, 2021. Swiggy Bazaar will concentrate on grocery FMCG and fresh farm produce. Swiggy's social commerce initiative is set to be launched at a crucial time when the space is seeing many activities from many other players like Meesho, which is launching Farmiso, whereas Flipkart has already launched Shopsy.
- Affiliate Income
Swiggy also earns revenue by partnering with a number of financial institutions like Citibank, HSBC, and ICICI Bank. This affiliate initiative helps the customers get amazing discounts for different offer values on the usage of credit and debit cards from various banking and financial institutions. Furthermore, it also helps the banks and financial organizations to boost their sale along with helping Swiggy earn, thereby making it a win-win situation for everyone.
Swiggy ended FY 2019-20 with revenues worth Rs 2,776 crore, which is a 115% jump when compared to the last fiscal.
Shubham Kumar
Swiggy—Funding & Investors
Swiggy raises $1.25 billion on July 20, 2021, in a round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 and its existing investors including Prosus, Accel Partners, Goldman Sachs, and more. The last funding round that the company witnessed was on July 12, 2021 where Swiggy raised $450 million in a round led by Softbank, according to the co-founder of the company who disclosed it via an internal email.
The company is currently eyeing a funding round worth around $800 million, led by a bunch of existing investors like Softbank, Prosus, and others, as of September 27, 2021. A funding round of that magnitude would help the company shoot its valuation to over $10 billion, which will be around a 90% jump in its valuation within a matter of few months, mentioned some people aware of the upcoming round of funding on request of anonymity. Swiggy was last valued at $5.5 billion in July after raising around $1.3 billion led by Softbank Vision Fund.
Swiggy has seen a total of $3.7 billion worth of funding over 15 rounds.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors/Shareholders |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 12, 2021 | Series J | $1.3 billion | SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Accel Partners, Prosus |
| April 5, 2021 | Series J | $800 million | Falcon Edge Capital, Prosus Ventures |
| May 19, 2020 | Venture Round | $1.9 million | - |
| April 6, 2020 | Series I | $43 million | - |
| February 19, 2020 | Series I | $113 million | Prosus Ventures |
| December 20, 2018 | Series H | $1 billion | Prosus Ventures |
| June 21, 2018 | Series G | $210 million | Prosus Ventures and DST Global |
| February 8, 2018 | Series F | $100 million | Prosus Ventures |
| May 30, 2017 | Series E | $80 million | - |
| January 1, 2017 | Debt Financing | $5 million | - |
Swiggy—Growth
Swiggy has handled around 1.5 million deliveries per month in Aug 2016. However, when documented in Oct 2019, Swiggy announced that they were handling 1.5 million deliveries per day. Therefore, the company witnessed a 30x growth in 3 years. Anuj Rathi, VP for Product, Revenue, and Growth in Swiggy, has a big hand in their growth.
According to the revenues reported by the food delivery giant on February 2021, for the financial year 2019-20, it currently stands at Rs 2,776 crore, which is a 115% jump when compared to the last financial year. However, the company has also reported a net loss of Rs 3,768 crores during the same fiscal. This is a 61% increase from the last financial year. The total expenses of the Bengaluru-based company amounted to Rs 6,545 crore.
During the year under review, the business of Swiggy grew by 85%. Furthermore, the company also announced that they have added over 100,000 restaurants and is currently running with an active delivery fleet of over 200,000. Additionally, Swiggy remarked, “We also widened our reach across the country by launching 405 new cities".
Swiggy attained the unicorn status in just four years of its birth, making it the fastest startup in India to achieve the feat.
In an attempt to expand the business verticals, Swiggy has already collaborated with the e-cycle manufacturer, Hero Lectro and Fast Despatch Logistics, a last-mile delivery player from the UK. This will enable the company to seamlessly deliver end-to-end orders through cargo e-cycles. Now, Swiggy has joined Reliance BP Mobility Limited (RBML) and is looking to make things big, drawing upon Ola Electric.
Swiggy — ESOPs
Swiggy has declared that it will hold 2 ESOP liquidity events in the next 2 years worth $35 mn - 40 mn at its current valuation. The foodtech major further mentioned that its employees would thus, benefit from any potential increase in its valuation during the liquidity in 2022 and 2023. All of the Swiggy employees who hold shares under the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) at Swiggy are eligible to participate in both the liquidity events.
The first and second of such events had already occurred previously in June 2018 and November 2020 and the next liquidity events are scheduled for July 3, 2022, and July 4, 2023, as mentioned by Swiggy on October 6, 2021.
Swiggy has announced that its equity shares are allotted to its employees and top executives under the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and management stock ownership plan (MSOP) respectively, as of October 27, 2021.
Going by the regulatory filings of the foodtech major, the company has allotted ESOP Equity shares worth Rs 132.5 crores to 180 employees.
Rahul Bothra, the CFO of Swiggy has been allotted ESOP worth Rs 31.2 crores and stands as the biggest beneficiary of the ESOP program. Anuj Rathi (SVP, revenue, and growth) stands next in line with an allotment of ESOP worth Rs 20.4 crores.
On the other hand, Phani Kishan Addepalli, who was announced as the co-founder of Swiggy and appointed as the CEO of Supr Daily, has received ESOPs amounting to Rs 8.3 crore. The remaining Rs 72.6 crore worth of ESOP has been allotted to 177 employees of the company. The company has allotted all of the above-mentioned ESOP shares at an exercise price of Re 1 per share only.
Furthermore, Swiggy has filed separately to allot its co-founder and CEO Sriharsh Majety with MSOP equity shares worth Rs 196.4 crore.
Swiggy—Competitors
Though Swiggy boasts of a huge market now, it has always witnessed tough market competition from companies like:
- Zomato: A food delivery company that has an exhaustive list of partnering restaurants and their menus, and helps the customers on both their ordering in and dining out ventures
- Fassos: Fassos is known for its food-on-demand services, owned by the online restaurant company, Rebel Foods.
- Box8: Box8 is a Mumbai-based company that helps the customers order desi meals in no time.
Some other competitors of Swiggy include Dunzo, FreshMenu, etc.
Swiggy—Challenges
Though Swiggy is often billed as one of the best food delivery platforms in India, the company is born out of the challenges faced by the founders of Bundl. In fact, the company continues to dodge them day in, day out.
From keeping the app up and running to managing their restaurants and delivery partners, to utilizing their revenue channels wisely and tackling negative feedback, challenges come from every possible direction.
Besides, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Swiggy had witnessed a bundle of challenges thrown at it all at once. However, the food delivery major had brilliantly coped up with them.
Some of the major steps taken by Swiggy during the pandemic are:
- Delivery of masks and sanitizers to all of its delivery executives and ensuring that they are washing their hands and using sanitizers at all times.
- Incorporating masks and sanitizers into the daily routine of their partners and delivery executives and monitoring that it is done.
- Temperature checks at specific stations on all orders.
- Introducing a double-layer of packaging and more.
Swiggy—Awards & Recognition
Here are some of the popular awards won by Swiggy:
- Swiggy won the Economic Times Start-up Award in 2017 as the Best Start-up of the Year.
- Swiggy also was recognized at Star Re.Imagine Awards for its tagline ‘No order too small.’
- The brand won the Outlook Social Media Award in 2016.
- Furthermore, Swiggy is also known for achieving unicorn status in just 4 years since it was founded
Swiggy—FAQ's
Who is the owner of Swiggy?
Rahul Jaimini, Sriharsha Majety, and Nandan Reddy are the founders of Swiggy, who founded the company in 2014.
What is Swiggy's Customer Care Number?
Swiggy focuses on dealing with a bunch of customer queries with its comprehensive chat support instead of attending to a bunch of customers and keep them waiting on their phone lines. With Swiggy's easy chat support, a customer just needs to initiate a chat and initially answer the bot, which later on redirects them to real advisors who solve their queries. Furthermore, the customers can also drop their issues at support@swiggy.in
How did Swiggy start?
Swiggy was started by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, Rahul Janimini, an IIT Kharagpur alumni who agreed to code for the platform. The company was founded in 2014, in Koramangala, Bangalore.
Is Swiggy running in loss?
Food delivery giant Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Private Limited) has reported its revenues for the financial year 2019-20 at INR 2,776 crore, a 115% jump since the last financial year. The company further reported a net loss of INR 3,768 crore, a 61% increase during the same fiscal. So, yes, the losses are increasing for Swiggy!
How can a restaurant partner with Swiggy?
A restaurant can simply mail Swiggy at partnersupport@swiggy.in and follow all the instructions.
Is there a minimum order value for ordering at Swiggy?
The short answer is No. If you want to order at Swiggy, you can do it without any further worries about any minimum order value that you must maintain.
Swiggy—Conclusion
Startups come and go in this present world of the digital, but Swiggy has earned its place the hard way and has truly revolutionized the food delivery industry. Besides, with its wide range of services, innovative branding, unique marketing campaigns, and customer-centric attitude, Swiggy is one such startup that is here to stay. And as it is said, "As long as you satisfy your customers, you reign in their hearts," Swiggy has already gained a place in everyone's hearts. Happy Swiggying.
Author: Vidhi Punamiya
Source : https://startuptalky.com/swiggy-food-delivery-services/
Date : 2021-10-27T06:30:00.000Z