Funding in food delivery continues, Ola pours in Rs 400 Cr in Foodpanda

After witnessing losses in last two fiscals, online meals delivery service Foodpanda will make a serious effort to regain the lost ground with the flow of new fund infusion.

The food delivery arm of the Tencent-backed company has raised Rs 400 crore from the parent company to beef up its operations.

Foodpanda, which currently claims to have 17,000 restaurant partners across 130 cities in the country, is now aiming to expand its outreach and build restaurant partners. It will also use the funds to scale up its logistics network, reports ET.

Last year, Ola had acquired Foodpanda from Delivery Hero (owner of Foodpanda brand globally) in a stock deal valued at $40 million.

For uninitiated, foodpanda started operations in India in June 2012, and since then had burnt hundreds of crores till last year. The company had recorded a loss of over Rs 187 crore in last two fiscals.

Foodpanda used to dominate food delivery market on the back of discounting and absence of serious challenger. However, it lost track as Swiggy and Zomato started onslaught on the incumbent. Over the past two and half years, both players had eaten-up a major chunk of Foodpanda business.

Just after a week of Alipay's (an affiliate of Alibaba) $200 million round in Zomato, Bengaluru-based Swiggy announced $100 million Series F round from South African media heavyweight Naspers and China-based Meituan-Dianping. 

Also Read: Ola bought Foodpanda India operations for mere Rs 28 crore

This is the second coming of Ola in food delivery space, the Bhavish Aggarwal-led company had shut food delivery service ‘Ola Cafe’ in March 2016 as it couldn’t manage to strike and maintain the partnership with restaurants.

Meanwhile, Ola’s arch-rival Uber had also launched its food delivery app UberEATS in India in May last year. It’s currently operational in four cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru.