Ola buys Foodpanda's India business from Delivery Hero

Indian ride-hailing service Ola has acquired the Indian unit of food delivery service, Foodpanda, as part of a growing trend of ride-hailing tech firms entering the food delivery market.

Foodpanda was previously owned by Delivery Hero, which will now hold an equity stake in the company. The amount of this stake remains undisclosed.

Ola, which is currently based in Bangalore, will invest $200mn into Foodpanda’s Indian business, it announced on Tuesday.

This will be the largest ever single investment in the country’s digital food ordering and delivery industry.

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Foodpanda originated in Germany and last year was bought out by its larger rival Delivery Hero.

Pranay Jivrajka, a founding partner at Ola, will serve as interim chief executive of the Foodpanda unit in India.

According to a press release, Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola, said: “As one of India’s pioneers in the food delivery space, Foodpanda has come to be a very efficient and profit focussed business over the last couple of years… Our commitment to invest $200mn in Foodpanda India will help the business be focussed on growth by creating value for customers and partners.”

In October, Ola raised $1.1bn in a funding round led by Tencent and has a post-funding value of $7bn.