8 food tech startups to watch out for in 2015

Food tech is the hot talk in the startup town. After technology startups have made their mark in the e-commerce, taxi & real estate sectors, now the ever-hungry Indian entrepreneurs are looking to satiate the appetite of others. If you live in Bengaluru, Delhi or Mumbai, almost everyday for the last one year a new startup is born to deliver something edible to your doorstep or your office desk. Yes, you name it and they bring it -- breakfast, lunch, dinner, beverages, snacks, and salads.

Food tech is a vast market and food delivery startups are just a part of it. The market can be categorized in multiple ways. From an end consumer perspective, we can categorize it in the following three simple categories:

Discovery:

• Restaurant to go to (ex: Zomato)
• Dish one wants to eat (ex: Quinto)
• Chef and make a reservation with him/her to come & cook at home (ex: ChefHost)
• Deal or coupon (ex: MeDine)

OTT or Convenience Services

• In restaurant payments (ex: Momoe)
• In restaurant ordering
• Table booking at restaurants (ex: DineOut)

Delivery:

• Of grocery at home (ex: BigBasket) (this is also considered vertical e-commerce)
• Of recipe box at home (ex: HalfTeaSpoon)
• From internet only/first restaurants/food ordering platforms - and this is what we are exploring today.

Here are the eight food tech startups which deliver food to your doorstep which you must watch out for in 2015:

Eatlo

Eatlo is founded by Sai Priya Mahajan and Rahul Harkisanka. Both were in the core team at FashionAndYou and UrbanTouch, after which they joined Mygola and Freecharge, respectively. Having tasted startups for a few years and zeroing in on an opportunity, the duo has come together for Eatlo, which is a food delivery app - users get ‘quick and hassle free food from the best chefs.’ Eatlo has its own kitchen in Bangalore. With backing from investors like Deap Ubhi (who has also invested in TinyOwl, and had previously founded Burrp), Abhishek Goyal (Tracxn, UrbanTouch, and Accel Partners), etc, they have some firepower to compete in this crowded market. They are currently doing 550+ lunch orders everyday, are live in HSR Layout, Koramangala, Bellandur, Sarjapur, Indiranagar and Domlur. They have a website (eatloapp.com) and an android app (eatloapp.com/app) to order from and the iOS app is going to be out soon.

Fresh Menu

Bengaluru-based Fresh Menu is a part of serial entrepreneur Krishnan Ganesh & Meena Ganesh’s startup factory GrowthStory. FreshMenu delivers lunch, dinner, all day sandwiches, salads and desserts to your doorstep. The startup is already creating waves in foodie-circles because of its exotic menu. Fresh Menu offers chef prepared plated meals on demand. Their menus change constantly and food can be ordered through their app or by placing your order on a call.

Holachef

Mumbai-based Holachef was founded in September 2014 by Saurabh Saxena and Anil Gelra. They call it a ‘fine dine restaurant in the cloud’. The mobile-first delivery of meals from chefs’ kitchens has raised Rs 2 crore funding from India Quotient in the form of convertible notes. The founding team has strong startup experience in sales, marketing & technology.

SpoonJoy

SpoonJoy.com offers freshly cut fruits, sprouts, a combination of both, lunch, and snacks on a weekly subscription basis for users. It delivers food to either office spaces or homes between 10 am and 6 pm in slots. Last December, SpoonJoy raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from Sachin Bansal and Mekin Maheshwari, the CEO and CPO respectively of Flipkart.com, Abhishek Goyal Founder, Tracxn! and Sahil Barua Co-founder, Delhivery. This funding gave the team much more than just capital – mentors & guidance at their disposal from some of the best minds in the country when it comes to logistics – the backbone of any food delivery startup. This is what we call smart money!

Swiggy

Swiggy is a food ordering and delivery startup based out of Bengaluru which started its operations in August 2014. Unlike many other food ordering platforms, Swiggy has its own fleet of delivery personnel equipped with smartphones with an app powered by routing algorithms, who pick-up orders from restaurants and deliver it to customers. This ensures that Swiggy provides customers with timely deliveries and real-time tracking of their order status. Swiggy does not have a minimum order policy on any restaurant and accept online payments for all restaurants that they work with. Within eight months of its launch, Swiggy has secured $2 million funding from Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.

TapCibo

Founded by Shashaank Shekhar Singhal & Monica Rastogi in October 2014, TapCibo wants to be an on-demand ‘food court’ mobile app. They want to enable smaller food entrepreneurs by enabling distribution for them via the app. TapCibo intends to become the technology backend for food entrepreneurs – small restaurants, eateries, and bakeries etc. It has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Alok Goel, CEO of Freecharge, who is also Monica Rastogi’s husband. The team’s focus is on strong technology play to build a mobile-based food marketplace.

TinyOwl

The not so tiny TinyOwl is a Mumbai-based startup founded in March 2014 by five IIT Bombay alumni. It has a mobile app on the Android and iOS that lets users order food from restaurants around them. They raised an angel round from Deap Ubhi (who had earlier founded Burrp which was very successful but went downhill after the acquisition) and Sandeep Tandon in April 2014, a $3 million Series A round from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners in December 2014 and the latest round of INR 100 crores from Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners. Deep pockets and hyper growth is what makes it the startup to watch out for this year.

Yumist

Gurgaon-based Yumist was founded by ex-Zomato CMO Alok Jain and Abhimanyu Maheshwari, a seasoned F&B entrepreneur in November 2014. This food delivery startup raised its first round of funding this early February from Orios Venture Partners. Yumist aims to provide easy access to tasty and homely daily-meals. A combination of food, logistics and tech, Yumist owns the entire delivery supply chain. It allows customers to place orders in a few seconds through its Android app and the meal is delivered hot in under 30 minutes. The founding team’s experience in the F&B space gives them an edge in the market and the growth metric speaks for itself.

Apart from these, more and more efforts like TakeUrPick which is a marketplace for Tiffin services and Foodinkilos which delivers food by weight are taking shape.

Which other food tech startup you think is a must watch out for in 2015? Share with us in comments.