Zomato to sell UAE business to Delivery Hero

Berlin based food delivery player Delivery Hero has acquired United Arab Emirates (UAE) business of Gurugram based food delivery and restaurant discovery company, Zomato.

The acquisition will add 1.2 Mn monthly orders and $2 Mn monthly revenue to Delivery Hero’s Middle East and North Africa region business and will strengthen its leadership position in the UAE. The online food ordering company Delivery Hero is present across 41 countries in Europe, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Delivery Hero also operates its own delivery service primarily in over 200 cities around the world. In India, Delivery Hero was invested in Foodpanda but later sold it for 1% stake in Ola in 2017.

UAE was the first global foray of Zomato in 2012 and soon accounted for 20% of its orders. The company also launched its premium service Zomato Gold in UAE in 2017 and in one year had over 380 restaurant partners for over 15,000 Zomato Gold members.

Zomato has been in a tough situation since its Bengaluru-based rival Swiggy raised $1 Bn in 2018, at the end to the year after joining the unicorn club earlier in the year. To challenge this, Zomato has also been in talks to raise a large funding round of $500 Mn-$1 Bn. Zomato recorded $1Bn in annual gross merchandise value. It also posted a 40% growth in its revenue for FY18 and targeted expansion to 100 cities across India.

Roadrunnr acquires TinyOwl

Hyperlocal delivery start-up Roadrunnr has acquired Food Ordering firm TinyOwl Technology Pvt. Ltd and has transitioned into a food ordering and delivery platform. It has also rebranded itself is Runnr.

After its acquisition of TinyOwl, the company has decided to reposition itself as a customer centric platform and launched a full integrated app called Runnr which is now available on the iOS and Google play store. Roadrunnr and TinyOwl have common investors in Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners.

Runnr food ordering app is currently live in South Mumbai with over 150 Restaurants. There is no minimum order size and the app offers live tracking of delivery. Roadrunnr may exit the business of delivering products for e-commerce companies and focus on a few select categories such as food, groceries and merchant-to-merchant or first mile deliveries.

The food delivery and takeaway market in India was pegged at $12.8 Million in 2014, however the actual penetration level has been only 0.7%. Around 27% of the 40 Million online shoppers order food online and the takeaway market is four times the delivery market.