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Restaurant discovery and online food ordering company Zomato on Wednesday said it had acquired TechEagle Innovations, a Lucknow-based startup that is working on drone technology.
The acquisition will help Zomato carve a path toward drone-based food delivery in India, creating a hub-to-hub delivery network powered by hybrid multi-rotor drones.
The two companies did not disclose size of the deal.
TechEagle was founded in 2015 by Vikram Singh Meena when he was a student at IIT-Kanpur.
Since then, his startup has been actively involved in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, with a focus on custom-made drones capable of carrying a payload of up to 5 kg.
"We are currently at the early stage of aerial innovations and are taking baby steps towards building a tomorrow wherein users can expect a drone to deliver the food they ordered online," said Deepinder Goyal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Zomato.
"Our first 'delivery job' currently is to design multi-rotor drones that can pick up a payload under 5 kg and set up drone delivery circuits for reducing the last mile delivery leg. We believe that robots powering the last mile delivery is an inevitable part of the future and hence is going to be a significant area of investment for us," Goyal said.
Zomato, which currently delivers 22 million orders a month, plans to expand its food delivery business to 100 cities in India. It claims to be having 1.5 lakh delivery partners on board.
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