Ola acquires Foodpanda's India business

This is Ola’s second foray into food delivery which will see it locking horns with UberEATS, Swiggy and Zomato

The ride hailing giant Ola has recently acquired the India operations of a food delivery startup, Foodpanda from the parent Delivery Hero in an all-stock deal. It has made a commitment to invest about $200 million more in the company. This is the second try for Ola in a food delivery business after it shut down the Ola Café in 2016. Ola Café was a food delivery vertical and Ola Store was a hyperlocal grocery delivery service. 

The head of Foodpanda India Saurabh Kochhar has also resigned from the company with Pranay Jivrajika, founding partner of Ola, taking over the reins at Foodpanda. While the details about the deal have not been divulged, it is heard that Foodpanda was valued at $40-50 million.

Bhavish Aggarwal, chief executive at Ola said that Foodpanda has come to be very efficient and profit focused business in the last couple of years. The commitment to invest $200 million in Foodpanda India will help the business remain focused on growth by creating value for customers and its partners. With Delivery Hero’s global leadership and Ola’s platform capabilities with unique local insights, the partnership is born out of strength.

Ola Café was launched in 2015 which perished due to stiff competition from Zomato, Tinyowl and Swiggy. Ola Café offered a select list of items from the restaurants in the vicinity as the company remained focused on offering fast delivery over multiple choices. Drivers who were affiliated with Ola would buy food from the restaurants in bulk and deliver it whenever the order showed up from a nearby locality. However, now it seems that Ola is pursuing the traditional business model in its second attempt at food delivery.