Innerchef acquires EatOnGo and Flavour Labs

Food technology start-up Innerchef, which operates in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals segment has acqui-hired two food startups, Flavour Labs in Gurgaon and EatOnGo in Bengaluru, signaling further consolidation in the food tech segment starved of cash after investors clawed back on investments late last year.

Acqui-hiring is essentially done for the target company talent pool more than its products and services. The acquisition of Flavour Labs, a food truck company, will help Innerchef enter the mobile kitchen segment, while EatOnGo, which specializes in breakfasts, will help the company expand its presence in Bengaluru. EatOnGo was launched in May 2015 while Flavour Labs started its operations in 2014.

In September last year, Innerchef had raised Rs. 11 Crore in a pre-series A funding round from a clutch of investors including redBus and Paytm founders. Apart from ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat meals, Innerchef operates a Hyperlocal marketplace for desserts sourced from home bakers and bakeries in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

Several food tech start-ups have shut shop following a slowdown in investment while some have been acquired by well capitalized rivals. While Internet first kitchen SpoonJoy was bought by Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers, another startup Dazo shut shop the same month. Bigger Businesses such as Zomato and TinyOwl have pruned their workforce last year.

Spencer acquires MeraGrocer.com

Retail Chain Spencer Retail Ltd, has acquired Gurgaon based Omnipresent Retail India Pvt. Ltd, which runs online grocery business MeraGrocer.com to enter the e-commerce space. The online grocery brand, which sold a gross merchandise value (GMV) worth Rs.5 Crore a year, caters to Gurgaon and Delhi. The acquisition will provide Spencer an omnichannel space.

Spencer would provide its entire basket of retail products through its online platform, starting with grocery and food and later extending it to non-food items. At present, Spencer Retail has presence in 35 cities with 122 stores across India. There are three more stores in the pipeline which will be added by March 2016. Spencer has plans to utilize the existing logistics and infrastructure, though it also plans to tie up with delivery companies for resources.

Meragrocer.com has been in operations from the end of 2014, and its customers can order through a mobile-app, IVR and pay either through an e-wallet or cash-on-delivery. Spencer expects to complete the acquisition and integration process in the next one or two month. At present there are close to 20 employees, all of whom will be absorbed in Spencer.

Square Yards acquires Realizing.in

Gurgaon headquartered Real Estate advisory and brokerage firm Square Yards Consulting Pvt. Ltd., is set to merge with Real Estate research portal Realizing.in. The move is aimed at capturing 15 per cent market share of India’s Real Estate search market in the next few years. As part of the deal, the entire team of Realizing which is owned by IDW Technology Pvt. Ltd., would join square yards.

The Realizing.in portal would be rechristened as Square yards and the group would continue to build research capabilities under the Realizing brand. The ultimate aim is to evolve Realizing into a big data analytics platform for global real estate. Square yards, which operates a portal by the same name has been evolved in real estate transactions worth $350 Million since starting operations.

Square yards offers solutions for property related needs. It caters to residential projects, hotels projects, student accommodation, and mall development. Square yards had raised $6 Million in a pre-series round of funding from a clutch of unnamed investors in May this year. The company claims to have clocked revenue of Rs 38 crore in its first year of operations. Realizing.in offers services such as city heat maps, carpet area and built up area calculations for property transactions. It also helps users with key property related decision based on automated algorithms.

India’s online property search market has evolved radically over the last few years. The leading companies in this space are Softbank backed Housing, News Corp backed PropTiger and Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital backed CommonFloor besides the legacy players. Times Internet promoted Magic Bricks, Info Edge 99acres.com and Chennai based India Property. 

PVR to acquire SPI Cinemas

PVR is one of the cinema chains in India. The company began as a joint venture between Priya Exhibitors Private Limited and Village Roadshow Limited in 1995 and began their commercial operations in 1997, headquartered in Gurgaon, India. SPI Cinemas is an Indian Multiplex and film production company owned by SPI Group, headquartered in Chennai, India. It is originally named as Sathyam Cinemas.

The PVR Group seems set to acquire SPI Cinemas for 750-1000 crore, in what could end up as biggest deal in India Multiplex sector. The SPI Group currently runs a cinema exhibition, distribution, and production business. It has five brands of theatres named as Sathyam, Escape, The Cinema, S2 Cinemas, and Luxe. The group operates around 56 screens, mainly in Tamil Nadu and within a few in Andhra Pradesh.

PVR, with 454 screens in 102 locations across 43 cities, is the largest cinema exhibitor in terms of screens. Of these, 204 screens are in western India, 133 in the north, 98 in the south, and 19 in the east. If PVR acquires this asset, it would be a good acquisition because it intends to double its capacity in the next four-five years. PVR and Inox Leisure Ltd, India’s second largest cinema operator in terms of screens, together command close to 50% of the screens in India’s multiplex sector.

With more number of smart cities and malls, there is a open area for companies to expand. Last year, Inox acquired Delhi based Satyam Cineplexes Ltd for Rs. 182 Cr. With this Inox expanded its presence to 50 cities, with 91 multiplexes and 358 screens. In 2007, Inox acquired Calcutta Cine Pvt. Ltd, and in 2010, it acquired Fame India Ltd. In November 2012, PVR had acquired Mumbai headquartered Cinemax Ltd from its promoters for Rs. 395 Crore.

Zomato Acquires Italy Cibando

Restaurant Search Portal Zomato, which raised $60 Million in November and got start up of the year award, has acquired Cibando, one of the Italy’s largest restaurant search services. The company is rapidly expanding its presence outside India. Gurgaon based Zomato Media Pvt Ltd said it will invest $6 Million in Italy over the next two years to grow the team and the business in the country.

Cibando, founded by Guk Kim in 2010, is an online and mobile restaurant search service based in Italy that offers about 7,000 professionally generated reviews and 150,000 photographs taken by food photographers. About 82,000 restaurants are listed on Cibando. The new combined entity will grow to 30-40 people in the next three months and over time the Italy operation is expected to grow to 150-200 people across the top six cities.

With the acquisition of Cibando, Zomato fifth buy this year, the company has a presence in 20 countries. It acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republic, Obedovat in Slovakia, and Gastronauci in Poland this year. It further aims to widen its international presence by entering 15 more countries in 2015. The company has so far steered clear of the US, a market dominated by larger competitors such as Yelp, GrubHub, and Open Table.

Zomato competes with Yelp in markets such as the UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Chile. In 2015, it can enter into US too. The company is currently valued at $660 Million. It currently employs over 900 people n around 100 cities across 20 countries. The company gets about 35 Million visits per month across its website and mobile applications. It gets more than half of its traffic from its mobile application. Zomato provides detailed restaurant information such as menus, contact details, pictures, geo-coded maps and user reviews on over 310,000 restaurants.