Swish, a rapid food delivery firm, has raised $2 million from Accel and a clutch of angel investors to compete with Swiggy’s Bolt, Zomato Everyday and Zepto Cafe and others at a time when an increasing number of companies are looking to ride the success of quick commerce in India and deliver food in 10 minutes.
Quick commerce, despite being less than four years in existence, has become a $5.5-billion industry, thanks to users who are now opting to purchase from rapid delivery platforms, instead of kiranas and legacy e-commerce websites like Flipkart and Amazon.
After 10-minute grocery delivery, rapid food delivery is catching up. Zepto launched Zepto Cafe for the same 10-minute food delivery service and clocked an annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of Rs 160 crore and is projected to touch Rs 1,000 crore by FY26.
Swish raised the $2 million (or around Rs 17 crore) from Accel, while former Swiggy executives such as Karthik Gurumurthy and Karan Arora, Urban Company’s Abhiraj Singh Bhal and Varun Khaitan and Scapia’s Arindam Roy and Anil Goteti too invested in the company.
“Swish began with a bold goal - to deliver delicious, fresh food in 10 minutes. With this fundraise, Swish is all set to build India’s fastest and most delightful food delivery platform,” Aniket Shah, co-founder and CEO of Swish, said in a LinkedIn post on November 19.
Accel, which made a whopping 26X return on its $19.85 million investment in Swiggy, looks to replicate its success by betting on Swish.
Shah founded Swish along with Ujjwal Sukheja and Saran S in May 2024. They earlier worked at Pillow, a neobank built on Web3 rails, which shut shop around July 2023. “The three of us always worked together like a pod even during our time at Pillow and we really missed working together. Finally, one fine evening we had an honest conversation and decided to quit our jobs to build something of our own,” Shah wrote in a post earlier.
“In the process, we realised that quick commerce, which started as a good-to-have, has become indispensable. It is evident that people are demanding quicker answers to their needs. However, food delivery times still lag at 30-60 minutes often,” his post added.
The view is similar to what Zomato chief Deepinder Goyal and Swiggy's top boss Sriharsha Majety had said earlier. “Blinkit is fast, but that has made Zomato seem slow. In some areas, we take 40 minutes to deliver and 40 minutes is very, very slow,” Goyal had told Moneycontrol in an interview earlier.
“So customer expectation is moving, and food delivery will have to change. More restaurants will open up close to customer locations, or a 10-minute food format, some canteen food kind of format, will come up to meet customer expectations,” while adding that 10-minute food delivery can be a game-changer.
Swiggy CEO Majety also said 10-minute food deliveries are promising. "There are many times when you can't plan your life around 30 to 40-minute food deliveries. If you're, for example, taking off for your office commute in 20, you feel like you want to get a coffee, maybe you can't do that. If you're in between meetings at the office and you forgot to get your lunch, you only have a 20-30-minute break, you can't plan your life around it," he said.
"But once people get used to it, there's no going back. That's what we've seen in quick commerce as well," Majety added.
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