Foodpanda Is In The Process of Raising Fresh Capital

As one of the original food delivery services in India, the Rocket Internet backed Foodpanda is eyeing new funding, but the sources are not revealed at this point. Last year, Foodpanda faced allegations of internal fraud and misappropriation of funds brought up against top management. The company also recently mandated Mumbai-based mid-market investment bank o3 Capital for a $40-60 million fund-raise as it initiates talks with investors, reports Times of India.

The company is also in the process of selling its Indonesian business and rethinking its presence across the rest of Southeast Asia, because the Samwer brothers are struggling to show profitability for most of their portfolio of consumer internet startups. Just last month Jabong, fashion and lifestyle e-tailer, was sold to Myntra in a slump sale evaluation of $70 million. Rocket Internet was a major shareholder of Jabong.

Saurabh Kochar, CEO Foodpanda India confirmed to TOI that o3 Capital was supporting the company in the current fund-raising process. He added, “Also, to be certain, we are not looking to exit India. We have grown rapidly over the last months while increasing our already positive operating margins and would continue to do so going forward.” But TOI didn’t get any comments from Rocket Internet or o3 Capital regarding the matter at the time of printing their article.

Foodpanda competes with Swiggy and Zomato, mostly, in the Indian food delivery market. With about 30,000 average daily orders, Foodpanda is third after Swiggy and Zomato. A source even said, “They are currently looking to raise money from financial investors but are parallelly talking to strategics as well. They’ve re moved a lot of the discounted restaurants from their platform and shut down operations in many cities. Also, their unit economics has improved considerably.”

Launched in 2012 by Rocket Internet in Berlin, Foodpanda now operates across 20 countries, mostly in Southeast Asia. Recently, Foodpanda acquired their local competitors in Saudi Arabia, Hungerstation.