Restaurant management platform UrbanPiper raises $24 million in Series B from Zomato, Swiggy, others

UrbanPiper Founders Manav Gupta, Saurabh Gupta and Anirban Majumdar

Bengaluru-based restaurant management platform UrbanPiper has raised $24 million in funding from a clutch of investors, including food delivery rivals Swiggy and Zomato.

The round was led by existing investors Sequoia India and Tiger Global and it also saw participation from angel investors such as Shyft and Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah, Curefoods founder Ankit Nagori, and Shiprocket co-founder Vishesh Khurana.

The startup had raised $7.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global along with Sequoia India in October 2019.

The restaurant management platform plans to use the newly raised funds to scale its product and engineering teams, strengthen its platform capabilities, as well as broaden its offerings to enable more services to restaurants.

Founded by Saurabh Gupta, Anirban Majumdar, and Manav Gupta in 2015, UrbanPiper is building a full-stack restaurant management platform that helps restaurants operate and scale their businesses with minimal hassle. Through its platform, restaurants can integrate all these aggregators onto a single dashboard and connect it with their points of sale, the company said.

“We are grateful to see both Swiggy and Zomato come together and participate in this round... What we are building is adding a lot of value to the food ecosystem,” said Gupta.

"Addressing specific needs, the (UrbanPiper) team has always found ways to bridge gaps by creating a win-win for both restaurants and Swiggy. We are excited about the market potential and look forward to scaling our partner network with their continued support,” Sriharsha Majety, CEO of Swiggy, said.

The restaurant management platform is live in more than 27,000 locations across eight countries, including India and the Middle East. It processes about 14 million orders per month, equating to $750 million in order value per year.

Its customers include restaurant chains such as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC, Subway, Cure Foods, Taco Bell, and Rebel Foods. It claims to be processing over 18 percent of all online food orders placed each month in India.

“UrbanPiper is at the forefront of this digital transformation and is strategically positioned to build infrastructure connecting digital players to merchants in the F&B (Food and Beverage) ecosystem. Sequoia Capital India is excited to deepen the partnership with the UrbanPiper team as they build further on their mission to empower restaurants globally, and welcome Zomato and Swiggy to this partnership,” said Shraeyansh Thakur, Principal, Sequoia India.

Going forward, the startup plans to strengthen its footprint by launching in more regions across India, the Middle East/ North Africa (MENA), and the European Union (EU) with an aim to onboard over 200,000 restaurant locations onto the platform in the next two years.

The company also plans to increase its headcount from existing 150 employees in India to over 250 employees in the next year.

Zomato has invested in over half a dozen companies like BlinkIt, Shiprocket, Magicpin, Curefit, Mukunda Foods and Adonmo. More recently, Zomato's rival, Swiggy led a Series D funding round where bike taxi startup Rapido raised $180 million.