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Ola Buys Foodpanda India to Open New Front in Fight With Uber

Ola Buys Foodpanda India to Open New Front in Fight With Uber

(Bloomberg) -- Ride-hailing startup Ola is buying Foodpanda’s Indian operations and will invest $200 million in the business, taking its battle with Uber Technologies Inc. into meals-on-demand.

ANI Technologies Pvt’s Ola will acquire Delivery Hero AG’s local Foodpanda business in return for Ola stock, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The move coincides with the aggressive expansion of UberEATS in the country, even as the rivals continue to vie for leadership in ride-summoning.

Ola, which attempted its own grocery and food delivery services before shutting them in 2016, gains Foodpanda’s roster of some 12,000 restaurants in more than 100 Indian cities. It’s also getting into a low-margin business that’s spurred the failure of dozens of Indian foodtech startups. The segment’s largest players have consolidated their operations in the past two years by acquiring smaller players.

UberEATS made its India debut in May and has quickly ramped up to over half a dozen cities. The $200 million investment in Foodpanda will be the largest deal of its kind in India’s online food-ordering and delivery segment, Ola said. The ride-hailing giant said it intends to grow Foodpanda by marrying its own scale and transport network with Delivery Hero’s expertise.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saritha Rai in Bangalore at srai33@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.