How Rapido's Ownly Stacks Up Against Zomato & Swiggy

After much ado, Rapido’s food delivery service, Ownly, has gone live in pockets of Bengaluru. Taking on giants like Zomato and Swiggy, Ownly is currently live in three areas of the city – Koramangala, HSR and BTM layout.

The standalone food delivery app provides users the option to switch on the veg mode, which displays only vegetarian restaurants. It also lets customers order food under a set budget. For instance, there is an option on the app to order food under INR 250.

As it looks to attract customers from the incumbents, Ownly is currently not charging delivery fees. This makes the food orders cheaper for customers compared to Zomato and Swiggy.

Besides, Ownly is not charging platform fees, which Zomato and Swiggy currently do. The new app is charging a flat commission fee of INR 25 per order, plus GST, from the food outlets. This is in contrast with Zomato and Swiggy, which take a 25-35% commission per order from the restaurants.

“Ownly is getting good orders. Since there are no ads yet, it is not crowded. Also, it is much cheaper for us than Swiggy and Zomato,” a restaurant owner listed on Rapido’s food delivery app told Inc42.

Going forward, Ownly plans to continue building its food delivery business on the flat commission model to take on the duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy.

“Ownly is looking to charge a flat commission. Also, the food delivery app wanted us to take care of the deliveries. It also asked us to curate some food combos under INR 159,” another Bengaluru-based restaurant owner said.

As per Ownly’s terms and conditions, food deliveries will either be facilitated by Ownly through a third-party or the restaurant partner directly. “In both these cases, we are merely acting as an intermediary between you and the delivery partners, or you and the restaurant partner, as the case may be,” the app says.

Can Rapido Break Zomato-Swiggy Duopoly?

As reported by Inc42 in June, Rapido’s food delivery strategy hinges on “reasonably-priced” food items for customers and a flat commission model for restaurants. Ownly is also looking to tap into the pent-up anger against incumbents that charge hefty commission from restaurants.

To make its offerings more attractive, the company has also asked its restaurant partners to commit to providing at least four (or more) meal options below INR 150.

Going ahead, Ownly plans to charge a flat subscription fee from the restaurants for selling on its platform.

What might also work for Rapido is its own delivery fleet and over 30 Mn monthly transacting users. It also plans to offer sales data to restaurants, which has been a long pending demand from industry bodies.

Founded a decade ago by Rishikesh SR, Pavan Guntupalli and Aravind Sanka, Rapido offers ride-hailing services across cabs, bike taxis and autos. It entered the unicorn club in September last year after raising $200 Mn in a Series E round led by existing investor WestBridge Capital.

On the financial front, the startup trimmed its loss by more than 45% to INR 370 Cr in FY24 from INR 675 Cr in the previous fiscal year. The unicorn was said to be looking to close FY25 with INR 1,000 Cr revenue.

It is pertinent to mention that Rapido is not the first ride-hailing giant to enter the Indian foodtech arena. Ola has tried multiple times to enter the food delivery segment since its inception.

The Bhavish Aggarwal-led company started Ola Cafe in 2015 to enter the segment but shut it a year later. Later, the ride-hailing major again tried entering the space with the acquisition of Foodpanda India in 2017. After many efforts, Ola scaled down Foodpanda operations and eventually shut it.

Ola also tried experimenting with the quick commerce segment via Ola Dash, which was also shut down in 2022. Two years later, the ride-hailing juggernaut once again jumped in the fray and piloted its 10-minute food delivery via ONDC in some parts of Bengaluru.

Similarly, Uber launched its food delivery vertical Uber Eats in India in 2017. The company later sold the business to Zomato in 2020.

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