Chennai: Cab-hailing company Uber has invested Rs 1,767 crore in its India business. The investment is expected to strengthen its food delivery business as well as its new ventures in India.
The Netherlands-based Uber International Holding BV and Uber International BV have allotted 11, 128,746 shares of nominal value of Rs 10 for a premium of Rs 1,578 to Uber India Systems. As per a regulatory filing to the Registrar of Companies, the investment was approved on October 29.
“We estimate that a large part of this allocation would go towards to Eats business, therefore posing a direct challenge to other food delivery companies such as Swiggy and Zomato,” said Vivek Durai, CEO and co-founder of data intelligence company Paper.vc.
Zomato and Swiggy have recently raised funding to compete in the high cash-burn business of food delivery.
In order to compete with them, the parent company seems to have pumped in money into the Indian business. UberEats has not been able to expand itself to the size of Swiggy and Zomato.
While the global food delivery arm grew around 10 per cent in the last quarter, Indian business suffered losses and this had pulled down the global growth. Further, as per reports, the cab-hailing and food delivery business have been brought under Uber India Systems recently.
Apart from food delivery, Uber may also look at bringing in new businesses like UberMoney, which includes a digital wallet and upgraded debit and credit cards, into India.
It has also partnered with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to provide public transport from the metro stations in Delhi.
