Investors who hold shares of food aggregator Zomato became poorer by nearly 50 per cent since the start of 2022…reports Asian Lite News
To be precise, they lost 49 per cent in the year-to-date period as the stock hit an all-time low.
Reports that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had ordered a detailed probe against food delivery platforms, Zomato and Swiggy, for alleged unfair business practices with respect to their dealings with restaurant partners also weighed on the share prices recently.
The two online food delivery platforms are allegedly involved in delayed payment cycles and exorbitant commissions.
Post the CCI’s order, Zomato said in a regulatory filing to the exchanges that it will continue to work closely with the Commission to assist them with their investigation and explain to the regulator why all of its practices are in compliance with competition laws and do not have any adverse effect on competition in India.
Also, in the recent months, mutual funds and foreign portfolio investors too have sold some of their shares in the company, according to reports.
On Friday, the shares of the food aggregator settled 2.5 per cent lower at Rs 72.
Meanwhile, restaurant management platform UrbanPiper on Monday announced it has raised $24 million led by existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global, and new investors Swiggy and Zomato.
The platform aims to use the funds to scale its product and engineering teams and looks to expand to more than 200,000 restaurant locations globally in the next two years.
“With this investment, we will continue to widen UrbanPipera’s offerings to meet many more digital opportunities in the restaurant ecosystem, along with bolstering our platform capabilities,” said Saurabh Gupta, CEO, UrbanPiper.
UrbanPiper has restaurant chains such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Subway, Cure Foods, Taco Bell, Rebel Foods, etc., among its user base.
It currently processes over 18 per cent of all online food orders placed each month in India, and has achieved 10 times growth over the past two years, the company said in a statement.
Other investors also participated in the round, including Pankaj Chaddah (Shyft), Ankit Nagori (Curefoods), Saahil Goel and Vishesh Khurana (Shiprocket), Khadim Bhatti and Vara Kumar (Whatfix), among others.
The restaurant management platform is live in more than 27,000 restaurant locations across eight countries.
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Through UrbanPiper, restaurants can integrate aggregators onto a single dashboard and connect it with their points of sale resulting in a 70 per cent decrease in order failure.
It currently processes 14 million orders per month, which equates to approximately US $750 million of estimated order value annually.
“UrbanPiper is one of our key partners enabling us to seamlessly engage with restaurants and scale faster through their point-of-sale solutions,” said Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy.
“Sequoia Capital India is excited to deepen the partnership with the UrbanPiper team as they build further on their mission to empower restaurants globally, and welcome Zomato and Swiggy to this partnership,” added Shraeyansh Thakur, Principal, Sequoia India.
UrbanPiper plans to increase its headcount in the country to more than 250 in the next year.