Swiggy invests ₹250 crore to set up 1000 cloud kitchens

• Swiggy is investing as much as ₹250 crore to bring 1,000 cloud kitchens on board.
• In the last two years, Swiggy invested ₹175 crore in one million sqft space across 14 cities.
• Swiggy claims that its cloud kitchen initiative generated 8,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Food aggregator unicorn Swiggy is investing as much as ₹250 crore to bring 1,000 cloud kitchens on board. Swiggy will invest in building the cloud kitchens for its restaurant partners.

“Swiggy has always maintained that cloud kitchens will be the future of food delivery. Very soon, India will have the second-highest number of cloud kitchens in the world, only next to China. With the massive growth in online food ordering over the last 2-3 years, India has leapfrogged the widespread in-restaurant dining culture that was prevalent in many international markets,” said Vishal Bhatia, CEO of new supply at Swiggy.

Swiggy Access, an initiative that was launched two years ago, helps restaurants set up cloud kitchens. In the last two years, Swiggy has invested ₹175 crore in one million sqft space across 14 cities.

With this, Swiggy has the highest number of cloud kitchens in India.

Cloud kitchens help startups as well as restaurants to also reach out to more cities and service more customers.

“The milestone of Swiggy successfully creating over 1000 partner kitchens shows the faith the restaurant partners have in the concept and bolsters our pioneering efforts in enabling more success stories in the restaurant ecosystem,” said Bhatia.

Swiggy also claims that its cloud kitchen initiative generated 8,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country.

Interestingly, Uber founder Travis Kalanick also invested in the same space as the CEO of Cloud Kitchens. Kalanick's startup is also looking at expanding its business into India as it has been looking to hire India program managers and more.