Excl: FreeCharge CEO Alok Goel backs wife's mobile-only food ordering startup TapCibo

TapCibo, a mobile-only food ordering service, owned and operated by Bangalore-based TapCibo Online Solutions Pvt Ltd, has received an undisclosed amount in funding from Alok Goel, founder and CEO of online mobile recharge venture FreeCharge.

TapCibo is co-owned by Goel's wife Monica Rastogi. The startup will use the capital for team expansion as well as for technology enhancement.

TapCibo was started in October last year by Monica, an MCA from Harcourt Butler Technological Institute (Kanpur), along with Shashaank Shekhar Singhal, an alumnus of Indian School of Business (Hyderabad). Singhal had earlier headed mobile products at redBus.in.

TapCibo is an on-demand food delivery service, working on the concept of food courts and kitchen services. The startup, which has its own chefs to cook food, currently offers North Indian and Chinese cuisines and salads. Currently, it is operating in a few areas including Indiranagar in Bangalore.

Going forward, the startup is planning to partner with small-time food outlets and kitchen services.

TapCibo currently employs seven-eight people.

"We started a pilot in August last year on WhatsApp. Within no time, we started getting repeated requests. We realised that a lot of people here want to eat good food at a reasonable price. So we finally launched the mobile app," Monica said.

"The pain points that TapCibo addressing are interesting, given that they offer on-demand food within 30 minutes just like a food courts. This spares people, especially office-goers, from going to costly-restaurants for everyday lunch. Besides, it also gives people variety of options unlike tiffin services, which a have restricted menu," said Goel.

TapCibo is facing competition mainly from SpoonJoy, which allows office goers and other consumers to order meal packs such as set cut-fruit packs, and NutriTown. SpoonJoy recently received an undisclosed amount in funding from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal, chief product officer Mekin Maheshwari, Sahil Barua, co-founder of Delhivery, and Abhishek Goyal, founder of Tracxn. Gurgaon-based Yumist is another venture working in this space.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)