Online food ordering service TastyKhana raises $5M from Germany's Delivery Hero

Pune's Trinket Info Services Pvt Ltd, which owns and runs the online food ordering service TastyKhana.com, has partnered with Germany-based Delivery Hero and will raise $5 million from the company.

"The strength in our core markets allows us to invest in smaller, innovative companies like TastyKhana, accompanying them with technological know-how and financial resources on their way to the top," said Niklas Östberg, CEO of Delivery Hero, a global player in the food ordering space. The company was founded in October 2010 and is currently present across 14 markets.

Delivery Hero also invested an undisclosed seed round in TastyKhana in early 2012. Post that funding, the Pune firm expanded its operations to five more cities (Bangalore, Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida and Faridabad) from the earlier two (Pune and Mumbai) and claims to have registered 400 per cent growth in one year.

TastyKhana was founded in 2007 by Shachin Bharadwaj (CEO) and Sheldon D'souza (CTO). As of now, the site lists around 3,000 restaurants.

TastyKhana essentially focuses on its mobile app and has seen mobile orders increase 40 per cent within the last month, according to a company's statement. Techcircle.in also reviewed the app in its App Tracker section.

Online food ordering space has seen a number of players entering the market or existing ones strengthening their presence. In May this year, Foodpanda, a multi-location food ordering platform backed by Rocket Internet, raised over $20 million in funding from a group of investors including Investment AB Kinnevik, a Sweden-based investment company and Phenomen Ventures, a Russia-based venture capital firm. Existing investor Rocket Internet also took part in that round.

Techcircle.in also reported that Mumbai-based Just Dial Ltd, which runs an India-specific local business listing platform Justdial.com, is in the process of adding a new revenue stream. The firm is close to striking an arrangement with a large restaurant chain that will enable consumers to use Just Dial's mobile/web platform to place orders for home delivery of food.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)