Meituan-backed Indian food delivery unicorn Swiggy launches new on-demand service

Swiggy, the Indian online food ordering and delivery start-up backed by Meituan Dianping, has launched an on-demand, intracity courier service to send small packages of nearly anything, including laundry, lunchboxes and documents.

This new last-mile delivery service, called Swiggy Go, will initially operate in the company’s home base of Bangalore, capital of the southwestern state of Karnataka and India’s third most populous city, and expand to more than 300 cities by next year, according to Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and chief executive of Swiggy, in a statement on Wednesday.

“Swiggy’s vision is to elevate the quality of life of urban consumers by offering unparalleled convenience,” Majety said. He indicated that Swiggy Go will help expand everyday conveniences for consumers, five years after start-up started its operations.

The company also announced a “phased roll-out” of its on-demand grocery delivery service, Swiggy Stores, in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India’s fourth most populous city and capital of the state of Telangana. Users can order their daily groceries from family-run stores as well as supermarkets.

More than 300 merchants in Bangalore and about 200 in Hyderabad have signed up as partners for Swiggy Stores, according to the company. This service was initially run as a pilot programme in Gurugram, capital of the northern Indian state of Haryana, over the past six months.