Swiggy : The Fastest Growing FoodTech Unicorn of India

Those days are gone when people had to kill their cravings for delicious food just because of long queues at the restaurants or cafes. With the launch of Swiggy, the process of ordering food has been revolutionized in India. Now, you can enjoy your favourite meal anytime, anywhere without moving out or getting stuck in a relentless traffic. Swiggy has made ordering food very easy and effortless.

If you want to know how did Swiggy become the fastest-growing foodtech unicorn of India, read this blog. In this post, we will tell you about the remarkable journey of three entrepreneurs who built one of the most sought-after consumer internet firms.

To begin with, let’s understand what kind of a platform Swiggy is:

About Swiggy

Swiggy is an online food delivery platform with a wide range of restaurants, offering various different cuisines. It provides an easy access to the customers to get their meals delivered at their doorstep. The platform was started by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini in Bengaluru’s neighborhood, Koramangala. Swiggy was started as a food delivery service but within past few years, it has seen quite an expansion.

How did it begin?

It all started in 2013, when Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy came together to launch a company, Bundl, that would give a major boost to the courier services across India and would stand as a reliable logistics solution for its customers. However, the idea didn’t reap much rewards and the company eventually shut down in 2014.

Gradually, the failure of Bundl gave rise to the largest food delivery platform of India. Soon after Bundl’s closing, Majety started doing his research on other sectors of the market and found out that India was experiencing an unprecedented internet startup boom at that time. After analyzing all the possible outcomes meticulously, Majety thought building a sustainable food delivery space would be more rewarding and the idea worked out well. As a result, Swiggy was launched in July 2014.

The company started with just six delivery boys, providing food from 25 restaurants, and by March 2015, the company grew to serve 1 million orders per month.

Within a year, Swiggy has established itself as one of the topmost players in the online food ordering and delivering business.

Swiggy got its first significant funding of $2 million from Accel and SAIF Partners.  

Founders & Team

While Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy both are BITS Pilani alumnus, Rahul Jaimini had completed a Dual Degree from IIT Kharagpur in Computer Science & Engineering. Rahul used to work as a Senior Software Engineer at Myntra and later joined Majety and Reddy to build the mobile application for Swiggy.

Growth in the market

Becoming successful is not so easy, it requires patience and hard work, which the trio of Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jamini together put in their company.

Despite a stiff competition in the market, Swiggy has been able to achieve a tremendous growth not only with the support of an exceptionally talented team but, most importantly, with the help of a culture which is strongly anchored by a customer-oriented approach. Many people believe that being a late entrant to the online food delivery space must be a major drawback for Swiggy, but the company has a completely different perspective. Swiggy learnt plenty of things from the past experiences of the other startups.

Tying up with more than 25,000 restaurant owners, Swiggy has its own fleet of local delivery boys with operations across 13 cities in India, including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and other cities.

So far, Swiggy has seen a total funding of worth $3.7 billion from over 15 rounds. Notably, major part of the company’s revenue comes from the commissions it receives.

Reasons behind its success

The main driving force behind Swiggy’s success is its excellent logistics strategy. Back in 2014, when the likes of Zomato, FoodPanda and other such companies were trying to build an online marketplace which would connect customers to the restaurants and outsourced the delivery by either restaurant itself or third-party logistics providers, Swiggy’s founders understood that the only way to crack the food delivery market is to build an extensive logistics network.

Moreover, on-time delivery, availability of the top-notch restaurants as exclusive partners are the other two key factors which ensured customer retention for Swiggy and its growth in such a short period.