Foodtech Giant Zomato’s Expansion in New Cities and Drone Delivery Advancement

Key Highlights

Zomato is one of India’s top food delivering and restaurant discovery services

Zomato also holds a stack of information about restaurants and locations

Zomato acquired a Lucknow-based start-up called TechEagle Innovations

Zomato is one of India’s top food delivering and restaurant discovery services. Began in July 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, Zomato is now operating in 24 countries including India, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Brasil, and the United States and in the middle Qatar and has augmented into a $2.3 Billion company.

Zomato started its online food delivery service, with its competitor like Swiggy, Zomato does not have a delivery system. Customers place an order through Zomato application on their smartphones and restaurants would prepare the order and hand it over to the delivery staff of Zomato. Zomato also holds a stack of information about restaurants and locations. Zomato also helps new business owners to find set-up a location-based on the success rate.

“Developing cities are a vital part for our avenue and we expect them to make up more than 50 percent of total order capacity by the end of 2019,” said CEO Goyal.

Related : Bangalore based food delivery platform Zomato acquires “Feeding India” with an aim to feed 100 million every month.

Early this month, Zomato announced its expansion in 17 new cities such as Kottayam, Kollam, Khanna, Gurdaspur, Ambur, Deoghar, Bhimaavaram, Ongole, Srikakulam, Kadapa, Solan, Palwal, Rewari, Machilipatnam, Nandyal, Bulandshahr, and Shahjahanpur. This will make in total to 213 cities under Zomato’s operational areas with 1.8 lakh partners around the nation.

“We have been including at least one city to our portfolio every day since December last year. Our aim is to provide delivery services across 500 cities around the country by the end of this year,” Mohit Gupta, CEO, said in an interview.

Last year, The food delivering firm acquired a Lucknow-based start-up called TechEagle Innovations. In an attempt towards using drones for commercial deliveries. “While we are at a budding level, we feel that drone-based deliveries are going to be an essential part of the future. The factor which crushes the sector in the past years is now in support of its development. So, with the right crew, favorable government directive and soaring technological advancements, drone delivery will be a game changer in the food delivery market.” Zomato Spoke person said.

Related : Gurgaon based food delivery aggregator Zomato soon to provide home cooked meal services as well

Zomato will start working on planning hub-to-hub delivery networks and setting up multi-rotor drones that will carry deliveries up to 5kg. The firm will soon launch a pilot program in Delhi-NCR and after some time scale it to other cities. The company is confident is assured that the drone will be able to address the geographical challenges in India.

“We are in a world of advanced technologies and infrastructure such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and Internet of Things (IoT). Drones are made for performing the function with accuracy keeping in check Indian infrastructure and geographies. As a matter of fact, Urban infrastructure will play an essential role in the first level of our ‘hub-to-hub’ model in high-regularity areas.” Zomato spoke person added.

Zomato’s drone delivery system will be absolutely controlled with minimal ground supervision. The primary version of the system will use human interference as delivery food is only destined for hub-to-hub but ultimately will be able to deliver the orders directly at a doorstep.

“We are also advancing a clash-avoiding program with 360-degree sensors that will detect an object, such as a bird or another drone, at 50 meters distance and alter the path accordingly for a swift delivery.”

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