Zomato acquires food delivery start-up Runnr in all-stock deal to boost biz

Runnr gets 300 thousand orders a month, which is just less than 10% of Zomato's food ordering volumes

Online restaurant guide and food ordering startup Zomato has acquired last-mile logistics company Runnr for an undisclosed sum to boost its food delivery business.

Runnr will continue to function as an independent company offering logistical services to players other than Zomato in verticals such as pharma, grocery and e-commerce, Zomato said on Wednesday.

"We just signed our long-rumoured acquisition of Runnr. Emotionally, the deal has been in place for a couple of months now, and both the teams have been working closely with each other quite sometime now," Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a blog post.

With the combination of Zomato and Runnr, "we have everything in the stack of building a delightful food delivery service in India and UAE - end to end - listings, discovery, reviews, ordering, and now, logistics," he added.

Runnr is already efficiently fulfilling 300 thousand orders a month, which is just a tad less than 10 per cent of Zomato's food ordering volumes, Goyal said.

"Mohit (Kumar) will remain the Founder and CEO of Runnr and will continue developing his vision along with the rest of the founding team - Arpit, Mukunda, Gnanesh, Vatsal, and Aravind," he added.

At Zomato and Runnr, the delivery boy is going to get the status of 'most important employee' and is going to be treated like one, Goyal added.