Anirudha Kotgire of Waayu on Zero-Commission Food Delivery, WhatsApp Ordering, and Building a Restaurant-First Ecosystem

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky speaks with Anirudha Kotgire, Managing Director & Co-Founder of Waayu, who shares insights on building a zero-commission food delivery platform designed to empower restaurants with greater control, transparency, and profitability. He reflects on how rising platform fees, limited customer data access, and margin pressures have pushed restaurant owners to seek fairer, tech-driven alternatives that go beyond just order fulfilment.

Kotgire explains how Waayu has evolved into a holistic restaurant enablement ecosystem, offering solutions such as AI-powered WhatsApp Ordering, QR-based Ezee Menus, POS systems, and Restaurant Mandi—a zero-commission supplier marketplace for sourcing essentials at transparent prices. The conversation explores how Waayu uses AI for demand forecasting, delivery optimisation, and conversational commerce to streamline operations, improve customer experiences, and achieve a 98.5% delivery success rate. He also shares key learnings from 2025 and Waayu’s roadmap for 2026, including deeper adoption of WhatsApp Ordering, expansion of Restaurant Mandi across 80+ supplier categories, and team growth aimed at helping restaurants scale sustainably while keeping control over orders, sourcing, and margins.

StartupTalky: What service does your Waayu provide? What was the motivation/vision with which you started? 

Anirudha Kotgire: Waayu is a zero-commission food delivery platform that has been built with the idea of supporting restaurants beyond just delivery. The company not only offers commission-free food ordering, but also offers digital tools like WhatsApp food ordering, QR-based menus, POS systems, and Restaurant Mandi, which is a zero-commission supplier marketplace. And all these solutions help restaurants manage orders, sourcing, and customer interactions efficiently. 

The motivation behind starting the company is to create a fair and transparent ecosystem for the restaurants. It has been recognised that restaurant businesses are under a lot of pressure due to high commissions, less control over prices, and limited customer data. And Waayu understands these barriers, and is aiming to remove them by providing commission-free models and practical technology solutions that empower restaurants for sustainable operations. Waayu's goal is to help restaurants be profitable and make them flourish, while providing quality food more affordable for customers.

StartupTalky: What new services have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your service?

In the past years, Waayu has expanded its footprint even beyond a food-delivery platform, it is supporting restaurant owners to build a more holistic ecosystem for them. The company is using features like AI automated WhatsApp ordering, which allows customers to place orders using a chat service that is familiar to everyone, and Restaurant Mandi, which is a zero commission supplier marketplace that enables restaurants to get ingredients, equipment, and essential services at reasonable prices. Waayu has also enhanced its QR-based Ezee menu and POS systems, which help restaurants to manage dine-in, online, and chat-based orders from a single platform.

Waayu's USP stays at its zero-commission model, which directly increases the profitability of the restaurant. This restaurant-first approach enables businesses to get full control over pricing, customer data, and operations. Waayu offers an integrated system by combining orders, operations, and sourcing in a single platform.

StartupTalky: How has the industry you are in changed in recent years and how has Waayu dapted to these changes?

Anirudha Kotgire: The food delivery industry is now focusing on sustainability, cost efficiency, and transparency. Restaurants today are more cautious about margins and are finding tools that give them proper operational control. Waayu has been adapted to the transformation by offering not just delivery but also sourcing, POS, and conversational commerce. This helps restaurants reduce their dependency on the commission-heavy models, which helps them operate more efficiently.

StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the company's growth and performance?

Anirudha Kotgire: Waayu is working on a combination of operational and engagement metrics, which includes the number of partners of active restaurants, order volumes, repeat customer rates, and adoption of services like WhatsApp ordering, QR menus, and Restaurant Mandi. Restaurant retention and partner satisfaction are important factors, as they show long-term value.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges Waayu faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?

Anirudha Kotgire: One of the biggest challenges last year was helping restaurant owners, many of whom aren’t very tech-savvy, adopt our all-in-one digital platform. Unlike other POS systems that are complicated and overwhelming, Waayu’s suite is simple, easy to use, and directly shows restaurants how they can save money, streamline operations, and unlock new revenue streams.

We overcame this with hands-on onboarding, training sessions, and real-time support, plus our franchise partners provided local, personalized guidance. This combination made it easier for restaurants to embrace technology confidently and profitably, turning what could have been a barrier into an opportunity for growth.

StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack that you pulled off.

Anirudha Kotgire: Our marketing is largely driven by restaurants and local relationships rather than heavy ad spend. A big growth lever for us has been our franchise model. We work with local franchise partners who understand their market, have strong networks, and can onboard restaurants much faster than a central team ever could. Each franchisee owns a territory and is responsible for onboarding and growth, which keeps teams accountable and helps us scale sustainably.

We also grow through partnerships with restaurant associations and ONDC. By regularly attending association meetings and industry events, we build trust, understand real problems on the ground, and onboard restaurants through relationships, not cold sales. This combination of local franchises, partnerships, and restaurant-led growth has helped us scale efficiently while keeping costs low.

StartupTalky: What are the important tools and software you use to run your business smoothly? 

Anirudha Kotgire: At Waayu, we rely on a mix of our own in-house tech and trusted partners to keep everything running smoothly. Our internal platforms help us manage daily operations, work closely with partners, and deliver a great experience to customers as we grow. For payments, we’ve integrated reliable gateways like Razorpay and Easebuzz to ensure seamless and secure transactions.

All of this comes together through the Waayu Suite, which connects our entire product ecosystem on one platform. This includes Waayu Ezee Menu for instantly updating digital menus with zero printing costs, QR-based ordering for faster and contactless service, Waayu POS for easy billing and order management, WhatsApp Ordering for direct customer orders, and Restaurant Mandi for sourcing essentials at competitive prices. Together, these tools help restaurants operate smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in your industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you seen between India and the world?

Anirudha Kotgire: India is giving lots of opportunities because of its large, fragmented ecosystem so that it can strongly focus on making things affordable. While compared to global markets, Indian markets are cost-sensitive and mainly conscious, making the Waayu business model more relevant in the market.  And similar technologies are growing globally, as restaurants look for fairer platform models.

StartupTalky: How are you using AI, whether in service delivery, internal processes, or customer experience, and what impact has it created?

Anirudha Kotgire: We use AI to improve both operations and customer experience in very practical ways. On the backend, AI helps with demand forecasting, order flow optimization, menu insights, and operational analytics, enabling restaurants to make better decisions, reduce wastage, and run more efficiently. On the customer side, AI powers our WhatsApp Ordering feature. Customers can discover restaurants, browse menus, place orders, make UPI payments, and track deliveries—all through a simple WhatsApp chat. The system automatically detects location and shows relevant options, making ordering fast and seamless.

In delivery operations, our AI-driven delivery model ensures a 98.5% delivery success rate. The system automatically assigns the nearest delivery partner based on real-time location and availability. If a partner is unable to fulfil the order, AI instantly redirects the task or scans for and assigns an alternate delivery partner, minimising delays and ensuring reliable fulfilment.

AI has helped us simplify food ordering, improve efficiency for restaurants, and deliver a smoother experience for customers.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, service offering, and team base in the future?

Anirudha Kotgire: Waayu is focused on growing by onboarding more restaurants and boosting adoption of its digital solutions — WhatsApp Ordering and Restaurant Mandi. WhatsApp Ordering lets customers place food orders directly through a chat, from discovering restaurants to paying via UPI, all without downloading an app, helping restaurants get more direct orders.

Restaurant Mandi, a zero-commission supplier marketplace, helps restaurants source groceries, raw materials, equipment, and services at transparent prices. With over 80 supplier categories, it cuts costs, reduces reliance on unreliable vendors, and simplifies operations.

To support this growth, Waayu is strengthening its tech, operations, and support teams, making it easier for restaurants to scale efficiently while keeping control over orders, sourcing, and margins.                                                                                            

StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with another Service company founder?

Anirudha Kotgire: Giving more focus on solving real-world problems and building trust in the community. Sustainable growth is important for long-term growth to create value among the customers instead of gaining short-term gains.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.