Ride-hailing platform Rapido has launched its standalone food delivery app, Ownly, on Google’s Play Store. This marks the company’s official foray into food delivery in select areas of Bengaluru such as Koramangala and HSR Layout. The move puts it squarely in the crosshairs of entrenched giants Zomato and Swiggy.
The app’s landing page, similar to that of Swiggy, has a purple backdrop. As reported by Moneycontrol earlier, the app focuses on food items that are priced below Rs 150. In fact, most of its north Indian food items, like chapati, rice, eggs and others are all priced below Rs 100 as per Moneycontrol’s initial checks.
The service, called Ownly, has been positioned as a zero-commission platform that offers customers meals at offline-equivalent prices and gives restaurants lower costs with no hidden charges. It will start in the adjoining areas before expanding to other parts of Bengaluru.
The company had tested the app internally among its employees for several weeks ahead of the public rollout.
The launch follows months of preparation, including closed pilots in select areas and discussions with restaurant industry bodies such as the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) to negotiate terms for onboarding eateries.
Rapido’s pitch to restaurants has focused on affordability, with a commitment to list at least four meals priced at Rs 150 or below and a promise to maintain online prices at par with offline menus, Moneycontrol reported earlier.
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As part of its model, Rapido will charge restaurants a flat delivery fee — Rs 25 for orders above Rs 100 and Rs 20 for smaller orders — within a 4 km radius, while initially absorbing these costs for customers to keep prices competitive. Unlike incumbents, it will do away with extra charges such as platform fees, packaging costs and inflated online menu prices.
Rapido, which operates in over 500 cities with 4 million monthly rides and 30 million monthly active users, plans to fulfil food orders using its existing bike taxi rider network. The company believes that reducing the overall cost of ordering food online will attract price-sensitive users who have been deterred by rising platform charges and restaurant mark-ups.
India’s $8 billion food delivery market remains dominated by Zomato and Swiggy, which together account for about 95 percent of orders — over 4.5 million deliveries a day — but face growing pushback from restaurants over high commissions and preferential treatment. Challenger platforms such as ONDC, Zepto Café, Blinkit’s Bistro and Swish have emerged in recent years, but none has yet scaled enough to challenge the two incumbents.
Rapido’s model also recalls earlier attempts to break the duopoly, including Coca-Cola-backed Thrive, which eventually shuttered its delivery operations.
For Rapido, Bengaluru will serve as the proving ground for Ownly. If successful, it could pave the way for a wider rollout and potentially force incumbents to revisit the economics of food delivery in India.
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