HungryZone Sells 60% Stake to UK Based Just-Eat

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Online food ordering service, HungryZone has sold 60% stake to UK based Just-Eat, who will invest $ 5-10 million over the next three years into this Joint Venture.

HungryZone - For all ye Hungy souls

HungryZone started as HungryBangalore (Read our Interview with HungryBangalore Team) and later expanded to other parts of the country (raised half a million dollar from India Angel Network).

The online food ordering space category hasn’t grown at a substantial rate in the country, as opposed to lead generation channels (i.e. local search services) adopted by companies like Burrp, askLaila, Zomato etc.
Practically speaking, HungryZone hasn’t managed to grow (online ordering is limited only to Bangalore), given the first mover advantage they had in this space.

What’s your take on the deal? Especially the monetization model, which is playing middlemen role vs. a technology driven lead generation role.

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Excerpts from the press release

This deal is the first major investment of its kind where European e-commerce has invested in India and will provide a strong foundation for the Joint venture to expand into all Indian metropolitan  and metropolis cities starting with Mumbai and Delhi shortly.
Commenting on the deal Ritesh Dwivedy, founder and CEO of Hungry Zone, said, “Just-Eat is the leading global player in online food ordering, so the combination of Just-Eat’s best practices, with our strong local knowledge and technical prowess derived from 4yrs of operations in India, will drive growth for many years to come. Our proven business model and 200,000 loyal customers will only grow with our new partners thereby helping us expand our footprint in other major cities.”
Klaus Randel Nyengaard, Group CEO, Just-Eat said, “The acquisition of a controlling interest in Hungry Zone marks the first step of Just-Eat’s expansion into Asia.  The synergy between the two companies is compelling and we’re very excited to be working with such a strong local team. India has an exotic and rich culinary heritage; thereby catering to the variant foodies requires an innovative company like Hungry Zone to understand their preferences and I’m very impressed with their results to date.”
The Just-Eat Group operates in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Canada and India.