Heroically-monikered food delivery company Delivery Hero is investing $5 million in TastyKhana, a Delivery Hero-like service based in India, as part of a wider partnership between the two companies, and a prologue to its entry into the country.
Delivery Hero is actually already an investor in TastyKhana — having participated in the company’s seed round in early 2012 — and the two will come together so that the Indian startup can “understand global best practices and work towards delivering a better experience”.
TastyKhana says it serves seven cities across the country, which covers more than 3,000 restaurants. It says a 400 percent growth in orders since the beginning of 2012 is one of the factors that has prompted Delivery Hero to up its commitment to the firm — which offers apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry, in addition to its Web-based service.
The Pune-based company doesn’t provide figures for the Delivery Hero investment in its blog post, but a press release confirms that the deal is worth $5 million in fresh funds. Off the back of that — and the closer collaboration — we can expect TastyKhana to begin expanding into new cities quicker than a delivery boy ferrying piping hot pizza to a customer.
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Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, explains how the company can help out its investee in India:
The strength in our core markets allows us to invest in smaller, innovative companies like TastyKhana to accompany them with technological know-how and financial resources on their way to the top.
Berlin, Germany-based Delivery Hero currently covers 14 countries, and it looks like its entry into India will be via TastyKhana. That’s the very same approach that rival Just-Eat opted for when it entered India by acquiring a 60 percent slice of HungryZone.
To date, Delivery Hero has raised more than $100 million in investment. Its backers include Kite Ventures, Team Europe and Tengelmann Ventures.
Headline image via Thinkstock
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