India’s food delivery unicorn Zomato wants to bring drone-based food delivery with its latest acquisition

• Indian food delivery platform, Zomato, is set to enter into drone-delivery in India with the acquisition of a Lucknow-based startup, TechEagle Innovation.
  
• Zomato will become the first in food delivery space to bring drone delivery services in India.
  
• The move is aimed at helping the company create a hub-to-hub delivery network with the help of hybrid multi-rotor drones.

Online food ordering app, Zomato, plans to bring drone-delivery for its customers, buying TechEagle Innovations, an Indian startup that makes custom drones.

According to the company, the move is aimed at helping the company create a “hub-to-hub delivery network with the help of hybrid multi-rotor drones,” Zomato said in a press release. Food delivery forms a big part of the company’s business contributing over 65% of its total revenue.

Two months ago, India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), allowed commercial use of drones. This makes the food delivery unicorn, Zomato, first food delivery platform to enter drone-delivery. The startup currently delivers 22 million orders a month.

“We are currently at the early stage of aerial innovations and are taking baby steps towards building a tomorrow wherein users can expect a drone to deliver the food they ordered online.”, said Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato in the release.

Goyal added that the company is currently focused on designing multi-rotor drones that can pick up a payload under five kilogram and the related delivery routes that will reduce the last mile delivery leg.

“We believe that robots powering the last mile delivery is an inevitable part of the future and hence is going to be a significant area of investment for us,” Goyal said.

Other firms such as Domino’s, Amazon and Uber have also eyed drone-delivery systems. Earlier, Amazon reportedly announced that it will develop drones focused on delivery.

Zomato is quickly expanding its footprint in India, even into smaller cities. The company recently said it will soon have operations in over 100 small cities in India. It has also been boosting its capacity to improve last-mile delivery.

It bought logistics startup Runnr last September and has over 1.5 lacs delivery partners as a part of its last mile delivery fleet.

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