TastyKhana, a Pune based online/mobile food ordering and delivery service startup has been acquired by Rocket Internet backed Global online food delivery marketplace FoodPanda.
Interestingly, Foodpanda’s competitor Delivery Hero had invested USD 5 million in TastyKhana last year. While it may be surprising that competing brands have acquired each other’s companies’, it clearly points to the fact that they do not want to compete each other in same markets and hence the series of acquisitions by both, one of which is TastyKhana.
While Foodpanada is aggressively approaching emerging markets like India, Delivery Hero’s main markets seem to be Latin America and developed markets.
The financials of the investment are not yet disclosed, however, it is quite clear that if Delivery Hero has let go off TastyKhana, they have made a decent profit on their investment.
In our view, the total deal would be in the range of USD 20 to 25 million. The deal seems to have happened couple of weeks back.
TastyKhana was founded in 2007 by Shachin Bhardwaj and Sheldon and has been steadily growing over past 7 years. Their growth accelerated over past couple of years, after infusion of investment. Tastykhana currently boasts of turnover of over Rs. 10 crore and has close to 10,000 restaurant menus across 160 Indian cities. Tastykhana has witnessed 4X growth over last year.
TastyKhana CEO made an interesting tweet that should surely serve as a big motivator for lot of Indian startup founders and employees across India. Check out his tweet.
Also happy that we have been able to add 6 new (employee) millionaires to the Indian startup ecosystem :) @sheldondz @8ap
— Shachin Bharadwaj (@shachinb) November 17, 2014
Other Acquisitions By Foodpanda and Delivery Hero
Apart from Foodpanda taking over TastyKhana in India, they have also acquired Mexican food delivery businesses PedidosYa, SeMeAntoja and Superantojo to gain market leadership in Mexico. They had been operating in the Mexican market since December 2012 under Hellofood brand.
On the other hand, Delivery Hero has acquired Hellofood businesses (from Foodpanda) in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. They now have 17,500 restaurants across eleven countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela.
[…] which recently acquired Tastykhana, has also acquired Indian operations of JustEat. With this acquisition, Foodpanda has furthered […]
Its Really an interesting and shocking news that competitors in same field acquiring each other’s businesses. I hope we will see more mergers in near future.