Mukesh Bansal joins food-tech startup Swiggy's board as advisor

Bengaluru-based Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which owns and operates online food ordering platform Swiggy, has roped in Myntra's founder Mukesh Bansal as a strategic advisor.

"His (Bansal's) role in building an incredible product and scaling private brands at Myntra will prove to be beneficial for Swiggy as it runs a host of initiatives to solve different problems for consumers," the startup said in a statement.

"Mukesh Bansal brings an intricate familiarity with the e-commerce business, metrics, goals and complexities. His guidance shall help the leadership team achieve the goal of changing the way India eats and drive Swiggy's next phase of growth," said Swiggy co-founder Sriharsha Majety.

In 2007, Bansal founded fashion e-commerce platform Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2014. He is currently founder and CEO of preventive healthcare platform Curefit, which is set to be launched in early next year.

Founded in August 2014 by Majety (BITS Pilani alumnus), Nandan Reddy (BITS Pilani alumnus) and Rahul Jaimini (IIT Kharagpur alumnus), Swiggy is one of the heavily funded startups in the food-tech space.

Last month, Swiggy raised Rs 100 crore ($15 million) in a fresh round of funding. It has raised $75.5 million in multiple rounds of funding so far.

The startup is backed by marquee investors including Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), Bessemer Venture Partners, New York-based Harmony Partners, and Singapore-based RB Investments.

It offers a platform that enables customers to order food from restaurants in eight cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. It claims to have over 9,000 restaurants listed on its platform, and deliver nearly 40,000 orders per day. It also claims to deliver orders in 37 minutes on average.

The online food ordering business in India is estimated to be worth around Rs 6,000 crore, growing at about 30% month on month, according to a report by India Brand Equity Foundation, released earlier this year. However, this segment is transaction-driven and margins are wafer-thin.

Many firms in the online food ordering space have been facing challenges in terms of raising funds and scaling up. While startups such as Eatfresh, Faasos and FreshMenu follow a 'full-stack' model wherein they manage the end-to-end food-supply process from preparation to delivery, firms such as Swiggy, TinyOwl, Zomato Order and Foodpanda act as standalone food ordering platforms.

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