No Swinging For The Fences

- Charu Lamba

Despite starting with a bang, Indian food tech startups – TinyOwl, Runnr, Zomato, Foodpanda, Dazo, Spoonjoy have been feeling the heat since 2015. Many of them have either shut down or scaled down operations.

Though, initially touted to be worth US $50 billion, food tech startups cumulatively saw investments of a whopping US $74 million in the first half of 2015 alone. However, bleakness set in toward the latter half of 2015 with funding dipping to US $19 million. Funding in the later rounds, and with newer startups, dropped further to US $1-US $3 million.

Companies were delivering food to customers at higher costs in the hope that they will form a habit of ordering food, and volumes will eventually make enough business sense for them in the long run. However, this premise has not been proved right.