New Food Delivery Rival
Rapido expands its Ownly food delivery service to Hyderabad in a new challenge to industry giants.
Anonymous
Rapido has expanded its Ownly food-delivery service from Bengaluru to Hyderabad, its second market, using its Captain network and making the service available through Ownly’s standalone app and the main Rapido app. Ownly charges restaurants a subscription rather than a commission and charges customers delivery fees; CEO and co-founder Aravind Sanka says the company expects consumer fees to cover delivery costs. Its average order value is about ₹250, compared with roughly ₹400–₹420 at Swiggy and Zomato, and the company says 15% of new Bengaluru orders come from people who had not previously ordered food online. Rapido plans to add restaurants in Hyderabad and expand to major metros and tier-one cities, while avoiding 10-minute delivery and quick commerce for now. The company says it aims to reach the next 100 million users by launching in 100–200 Indian cities annually, and Sanka expects it to become profitable next financial year; an IPO is not currently planned.
Key Points
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Sanka said delivery accounts for 85–90% of existing food-delivery aggregators’ operating costs. Ownly is using Rapido’s existing technology, teams and logistics network instead of building those capabilities separately to keep costs down.
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Ownly had not yet begun charging delivery fees in Bengaluru, so it was not yet making money there; Sanka said fees would be introduced as order volumes gained traction. The service was handling more than 50,000 orders a day in Bengaluru about five months after its full-scale launch.
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Ownly had signed up 10,000 restaurants in Hyderabad and planned to increase that number to 30,000. It also outlined a next-quarter expansion to Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Surat.
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Sanka said Rapido spent 11 years building “under the radar” and prioritising its supply side, and that it received its first venture-capital round only after five years.
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