Swiggy To Invest $700 Million For On-Demand Delivery In 15 Minutes

Swiggy plans to invest $700 million (about Rs 5,240 crore) in its express grocery delivery service as companies rush to drop packages within minutes to win over customers amid a surge in online demand because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Bengaluru-based food delivery platform, which dabbled into express delivery with Instamart as a pilot project in Gurugram a year ago, aims to make deliveries in 15 minutes in top cities, helped by a network of dark stores very close to most of its customers, according to a statement.

Instamart, Swiggy said, is already serving customers across 18 cities, and is doing over 10 lakh orders per week. “In the last few months, Swiggy Instamart has on-boarded more than one seller-run (third-party) dark store every day.”

According to Swiggy, Instamart is set to reach an annualised gross merchandise value run rate of $1 billion in the next three quarters.

“With our food delivery business trending at a $3-billion annualised GMV run rate, and Instamart’s super-charged growth, we’re very excited about our convenience mission coming to life in a very big way,” Sriharsha Majety, chief executive officer at Swiggy, was quoted as saying in the statement.