Zomato Acquires Sparse Labs To Step Up Its Delivery Fleet

Zomato is growing, and how! This just in, the food platform has acquired two and a half years old logistics-tech company Sparse Labs, co-founded by Pankaj Batra. The acquisition soughts to improve Zomato’s delivery operations in areas that could really use some upgrading like delivery tracking.

About Sparse Labs

A lightweight mobile app available on Android, Sparse Labs assists restaurants in tracking and enhancing their in-house delivery services by sending the delivery-persons’ location to both the restaurant and the user in real-time, as well as dispatching route information to the delivery person.

“We make it easy for businesses to manage and analyse their delivery operations. Our product includes a clean web dashboard, rich APIs, out-of-the-box driver apps, customer notifications, accurate ETAs and a map that lets recipients track their orders in realtime”, reads their website.

Image: Sparse Labs

The company even has ties with popular online food and home services like Bueno Kitchen, Chop Chop, Cook Gourmet, Food Port, Pick my laundry, Quilvery, The Spice Lab, Whomely, Waiters on Wheels, and Zaza Box.

“Pankaj Batra, the founder of Sparse Labs has bootstrapped his product for over a year now, and is much loved by all his customers. He will continue developing his vision at Zomato, and the rest of the Zomato team is very excited to lend all their support to Pankaj going forward”, announced Zomato.

Zomato Trace

In collaboration with Zomato, the tracing app will be christened ‘Zomato Trace’. The partnership will help Zomato and its logistics partners, and also one up their B2B businesses. The Trace feature will be on trial by Zomato and restaurants soon.

Zomato said in its blog: “the system also allocates orders to riders based on their proximity to the restaurant, and uses machine learning to identify a rider’s familiarity with a neighbourhood to further optimise delivery efficiency. Restaurants also have the option of using a proprietary GPS tracker developed by Sparse, that can be fitted onto bikes.”

Image: VC Circle

What To Expect

If all goes as planned, then the Sparse Labs and Zomato tie-up should bring about a more transparent delivery system and hopefully one where the food doesn’t take up to 60 minutes to reach the consumer.

Moreover, the app will also provide the delivery guy with route info, which will in turn (again, hopefully) be a breather for customers who end up spoon-feeding the delivery person the directions.

Image: Gadget Teaser