India’s Rapido begins testing food delivery to take on Swiggy, Zomato

Rapido, a famous riding platform in India, started to test Beta quietly, the food delivery service in Bangaluru, which represents the first dangerous step to challenge the Swiggy and Zomato market in one of the fastest delivery markets in the world.

The 10 -year -old emerging company started testing the food delivery service in three primary areas in the southern city of Bangaluru, namely Perceandra, Tavarekire, and Madiwa (BTM), and Hosur Sarjapura Road (HSR), Koramangla, Rapido Conder and Coo Aravind Sanka.

Rapido has created Ctrlx Technologies, a subsidiary wholly owned by the food delivery service, named Ownly. The sub -company Sanka and Rapido lists the Vice Vivek Krishna president as managers, according to the regulatory files reviewed by Techcrunch.

Sanka said there is no specific reason for preparing the subsidiary company. However, this may be a strategic step to avoid the conflict of potential interests with Swiggy, which currently has a 12 % minority stake at startup.

Swiggy recently confirmed in a letter to shareholders that it will re -evaluate its investments in Rapido, noting a possible conflict of interests “may arise in the future.”

Meanwhile, Rapido’s Ownly also released the Android app on Google Play, which offers food from nearby restaurants at a price of 15 % of the prices in Swiggy and Zomato.

Low prices are the result of the Rapido model for not taking commissions from restaurants, which reach 30 % in the case of other food delivery applications, including Swiggy and Zomato, and instead imposed fixed fees for each request. The startup mentioned its fixed approach in a restaurant proposal in June.

Rapido has a fleet of about 10 million cars, including 5 to 6 million wheels, throughout India. The company uses its two-wheel fleet to provide food-in addition to providing taxis and curtain services.

Rapido will avoid showing restaurants that are located away from clients to reduce fuel costs and delivery times, and will sponsor the menu elements to apply to increase the margins to the maximum while providing enough to discover enough.

The investor said that while dealing with Swiggy delivery operations, Rapido has gained an insightful look at peak hours and high-order restaurants-the data that you will now benefit from the delivery service of its food.

The investor added that the agreement with Swiggy does not prevent Rapido from using these data, although it prevents startup from concluding contracts with Zomato or other competitors.

Rapido was founded in 2015, and began as a bicycle tax collection before expanding car vehicles, delivery of parcels, and third -party logs. In 2023, the cabins entered Uber and the local competition. The startup has gained a traction in this sector through its subscription -based model, as it was placed as an alternative to the commission approach used by its competitors.

Rapido has also made a partnership with Gogoro for the Taiwanese manufacturer of Googoro’s electric batteries to deploy their cars such as taxis. Moreover, the recent moves helped increase their evaluation and become unicorn last year.

The online food delivery market in India is expected to exceed $ 2 trillion (about 23 billion dollars) by 2030, according to the Bain & Company and Swigy report issued last year. Zomato is currently leading the market with a 58 % stake, according to Motilal Oswal, while Swigy, the 42 %, carries for each Bernstein. Uber was also among the first players in space with Uber eating, which he sold to Zomato in early 2020.

To date, Rabdo collected $ 574 million in 13 rounds, for each Tracxn. It operates in more than 250 cities and treated more than 3.5 million rides per day. Prosus, Westbridge Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and Think Investments are among the main investors.