Bertelsmann India Investments Leads $24 Million Fundraise in Swish as the Platform Scales Past 1mn Monthly Orders
Swish, the full-stack, vertically integrated food delivery platform that delivers fresh food to consumers in 10 minutes, today announced that it has raised $24 million in funding led by Bertelsmann India Investments (BII), with participation from existing investors Accel, Bain Capital Ventures and Hara Global. The fundraise comes as Swish continues to see incredible momentum across growth, consumer love and profitability. The money will support its next phase of expansion - kitchen network, supply chain infrastructure, and capacity to serve rapidly growing consumer demand.
Swish is building a vertically integrated, high-density network of neighbourhood kitchens that cook fresh food and deliver it within an average radius of one kilometre. By controlling the kitchen, technology and delivery experience end-to-end, Swish is able to optimize simultaneously for speed, quality and price, resulting in a fundamentally differentiated proposition in food delivery: faster, better and more affordable. The company has expanded rapidly over the past six months across Bangalore, Gurugram, Noida, Delhi and Ghaziabad.
Since March, Swish's monthly orders have tripled and are now serving over a million orders a month. Its neighbourhood kitchens - engineered for accuracy, consistency, quality and speed, and aided by robotic kitchen equipment - turn around thousands of orders a day with an average preparation time of under four minutes. As the menu has grown to more than 250 SKUs across over 20 food categories, lunch and dinner have overtaken snacks and late-night cravings as the platform's biggest consumption occasions.
"The food services market is about $100B in size, with online food delivery still capturing less than 10% of the market today. An average Indian consumer consumes food 90–100 times a month, but orders online only 4 times out of it. Getting fresh, delicious food at the best prices in 10 minutes is an incredibly delightful experience, and our ambition is to make this possible for 100 million consumers and capture a large share of this $100B opportunity. Swish is innovating next-gen automated kitchen infrastructure to cook fresh food and enable best-in-class format of food delivery: faster, tastier and more affordable for the end consumer. The business has grown multifold rapidly to over a million orders a month while barely covering 50 pincodes today. We’re seeing strong consumer love for Swish with over 80% of orders delivered under 15 mins. Excited to partner with the Bertelsmann team on this journey of becoming India’s favourite food delivery platform." said Aniket Shah, Co-founder and CEO, Swish.
“BII has invested in India for over a decade, and our conviction has stayed the same: the country's largest consumer businesses will be built by founders willing to own the entire problem rather than a convenient slice of it. We have seen it before in fresh non veg food at Licious, and we see it again with Swish. Everyday food is the biggest under-served category in Indian consumption, and it has remained that way because no one has managed freshness, affordability and convenience at the same time. Aniket, Ujjwal, Saran and team have built the kitchens, the logistics and the technology to do exactly that. It is once again a category defining investment from our side." said Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann India Investments.
BII's investment reflects its broader conviction in the evolution of consumer behaviour in India. Rising urbanisation, an expanding digitally native consumer base, growth in nuclear households and increasing workforce participation are expected to drive greater demand for convenient food solutions, even as the rapid adoption of quick commerce resets consumer expectations around speed.
“Unlike many Western markets, India has never developed a large ready-to-eat food culture, as consumers overwhelmingly prefer their food fresh and hot. The home kitchen has therefore remained the default for everyday meals because no alternative has combined freshness, affordability and convenience. By owning the entire chain from preparation and technology to last-mile delivery, Swish can bring all three together and make ordering food an everyday habit. We believe this can unlock demand that has either stayed in the home kitchen or simply not existed, and we are excited to back Aniket, Ujjwal, Saran and the team as they build a category-defining company,” said Rohit Sood, Partner, Bertelsmann India Investments.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to significantly expand its kitchen footprint over the coming years, deepen its presence in existing markets and enter new urban markets. As it scales, Swish aims to continue building the infrastructure required to serve a growing share of India's everyday food consumption.
