In line with earlier reports, RoadRunnr, the Bangalore based, doing-well hyperlocal delivery startup has officially announced the acquisition of TinyOwl and has rebranded itself as Runnr with an intention to build Uber-for-food delivery in the long run.
A couple of months ago, reports came in, saying that RoadRunnr and TinyOwl are in an early-stage talks and were planning a merger in an all-stock deal. Last month, reports said that that both the entities are planning to launch a new food delivery platform called Runnr in the next three weeks.
Since Sequoia Capital and Nexus Ventures are the common investors in both companies, it is believed that these two VC firms could be the driving force behind this deal.
This deal marks the first major consolidation in hyperlocal delivery space which has only been witnessing shut downs so far despite being a hot favorite of investors last year. While the company has announced acquisition of TinyOwl, the amount involved in this deal has not been disclosed yet.
The company says that Runnr will be a customer centric brand with delivery experience being the primary focus. It is confident about the success of this new entity due to its technology and efficiency of operations that the company has developed over the last one year.
After its acquisition of TinyOwl, the company has decided to reposition itself as a customer centric platform and launched a full integrated mobile application called Runnr which is now available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.
Runnr food ordering mobile app is currently live in South Bombay with over 150 restaurants. There is no minimum order size and the app offers live tracking of delivery as well.
Commenting on this new brand identity, Mohit Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Runnr said,
We are delighted to announce our new customer centric avatar – Runnr where we aim to set new benchmarks for food delivery in India. Backed by a strong and integrated team, this application comes with complete order management, easy booking, live order tracking and on demand delivery.
The combined entity of RoadRunnr and TinyOwl, called Runnr will now be competing directly against Zomato and Swiggy. While the company is pivoting into food-tech sector hoping to make a sustainable business model and capture significant amount of market share, it won’t be a smooth drive for the company to do so. Zomato, which is doing pretty fine among other food-tech companies, had to close down its physical presence from 9 countries in order to cut down on costs.
In March this year, Roadrunnr was forced to change the brand name to Runnr after an unknown company filed a lawsuit against Roadrunnr over an intellectual property right. Along with changing its brand name, the company has also changed its domain name to runnr.in.
TinyOwl, the online food ordering platform which was founded by Harshvardhan Mandad, had raised more than $27.67 million in four funding rounds, latest being $7.67 million in Series C round from Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital.
RoadRunnr was founded in February 2015 by Mohit Kumar and Arpit Dave. It uses an on-demand model to partner delivery boys and manage lean and peak demand, and charges businesses a flat rate per delivery. Till now, the company has raised $21 million in 3 funding rounds.
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