Zomato completes acquisition of Runnr

The India-based restaurant guide and on demand food service Zomato has officially announced that it has completed its acquisition of the logistics provder Runnr. Runnr will still be managed by its CEO Mohit Kumar and will continue to serve other customers and segments beyond Zomato’s food orders.

In a blog posted today (13 September), Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal said: “With the combination of Zomato and Runnr, we have everything in the stack of building a delightful food delivery service in India and UAE – end to end – listings, discovery, reviews, ordering, and now, logistics.”

Interesingly, Goyal added: “For the record, we have always maintained that the most cost-efficient delivery fleet is the restaurant’s own, where they can utilise the same staff during off-peak hours for back-of-house and marketing activities. That belief is still intact. Keeping that in mind, Runnr will continue to function as an independent logistics company (owned by Zomato) offering the full stack of logistical services to players other than Zomato as well – e.g. pharma, grocery, e-commerce, etc.

“This will ensure that the delivery fleet capacity that we build operates on a positive unit economics level while serving the mega-peaks in the food delivery business.”