In 2015, the online food ordering business in India was facing exponential
growth, with several new startups raising millions in funding!
By 2016, over 500 food delivery startups had setup shop in India.
TinyOwl, a promising startup with a stellar team, had raised a whopping US$ 27M
between 2014-15 from big name investors.
However, by growing their team to over 600 with aggressive hiring and a huge
cash burn, they were unable to sustain hyper growth and eventually had to shut
down operations just over a year later!
And in 2017, with UberEats' entry to the Indian market, the space was now
increasingly competitive.
Eventually in early 2020, unable to compete with the excessive discounts by
competitors fueled through VC money, UberEats was sold to Zomato.
The online food ordering business is now a duopoly with Swiggy and Zomato, both
companies recently valued at over $1B.
But the key takeaway from this is that with startups, ideas are
disproportionately valued, while in reality it is relentless execution and a big
share of luck!
Posted by Nikhil Prasad Maroli on LinkedIn
link: linkedin.com/in/mnikhilprasad
growth, with several new startups raising millions in funding!
By 2016, over 500 food delivery startups had setup shop in India.
TinyOwl, a promising startup with a stellar team, had raised a whopping US$ 27M
between 2014-15 from big name investors.
However, by growing their team to over 600 with aggressive hiring and a huge
cash burn, they were unable to sustain hyper growth and eventually had to shut
down operations just over a year later!
And in 2017, with UberEats' entry to the Indian market, the space was now
increasingly competitive.
Eventually in early 2020, unable to compete with the excessive discounts by
competitors fueled through VC money, UberEats was sold to Zomato.
The online food ordering business is now a duopoly with Swiggy and Zomato, both
companies recently valued at over $1B.
But the key takeaway from this is that with startups, ideas are
disproportionately valued, while in reality it is relentless execution and a big
share of luck!
Posted by Nikhil Prasad Maroli on LinkedIn
link: linkedin.com/in/mnikhilprasad