Swiggy, a food and grocery delivery service, has agreed to buy restaurant table reservation platform Dineout from Times Internet in a definitive deal. Swiggy will now be a complete foodtech platform, from delivery to table reservations. Swiggy is now directly competing with Zomato’s table reservation service, Zomato Book.
Swiggy said in a news release that Dineout will continue to operate as an independent app following the acquisition. Swiggy has made two huge moves this year, the first being a $180 million investment in bike taxi company Rapido.
Ankit Mehrotra, Vivek Kapoor, Sahil Jain, and Nikhil Bakshi started Dineout in 2012. Times Internet bought the company for $10 million in 2014. It already guarantees table reservations in 50,000 restaurants across 20 cities.
This SoftBank-backed company’s purchase has been in the works for months, and it comes at a time when Swiggy is moving away from business verticals that aren’t sustainable. SuprDaily, for example, has shut down operations in five locations, including Delhi (NCR) and Mumbai.