30 Under 30: How Swiggy's co-founders changed the face of food delivery

Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India

Rahul Jaimini, Nandan Reddy | 29, 29
Co-founders, Swiggy
Category: Ecommerce


Nandan Reddy, 29, and Sriharsha Majety, 31, both alumni of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, are second-time-lucky entrepreneurs. In 2013, the two started their first venture Bundl, a logistics aggregator that connected small and medium companies to courier service providers.

After almost a year in business, they realised their focus had to change. They had spotted the need for an online hyperlocal logistics company in the restaurant industry. By August 2014, the duo rolled out the online food ordering and delivery startup Swiggy, along with Rahul Jaimini, 29, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus, who was then working as a software engineer with online fashion etailer Myntra. Jaimini was roped in to build the startup’s technology infrastructure.

Swiggy began operations in Bengaluru’s upscale neighbourhood of Koramangala with six delivery executives and 25 restaurants on its platform. Today, it has scaled up with over 6,000 delivery executives across NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Pune.

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The startup has two major revenue streams. It collects commissions from restaurants for lead generation and for serving as a delivery partner. Swiggy also levies a nominal delivery fee from customers on orders below a threshold value.

Anand Lunia, founder and partner at IndiaQuotient, an investor in food delivery startups Faasos and Holachef, says: “I admire the exceptional execution they [the Swiggy co-founders] have brought to the business. Food delivery is not glamorous, it’s about doing things right, every day.” The disruption they have done, adds Lunia, “is that they have made third-party food delivery reliable. Earning consumer trust in the food sector is not easy.”

The success is evident: Swiggy has raised a total of $75.5 million in funding from various investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, Harmony Venture Partners, RB Investments and Apoletto.

Reddy believes there is headroom for growth. “We see a million orders a day as a very real possibility in the next five years,” he says.