Jubilant Foodworks Ltd has entered into a share purchase agreement with Hashtag Loyalty Pvt. Ltd to acquire a 35% stake in the online food ordering platform for around ₹24.75 crore, the company informed the exchanges on Wednesday.
Hashtag Loyalty, which owns food ordering platform Thrive, allows brands to build their own portals to get direct online orders from customers, besides providing omni-channel customer engagement and marketing automation solutions to restaurant owners.
Thrive offers digital menus, logistics, customer insight and data, besides helping restaurants tie up with online payment providers, point-of-sale integration, email and SMS marketing, ads on Facebook and promo codes.
Thrive counts companies such as The Bombay Canteen, Natural’s ice cream and Belgian Waffles, as its clients, and works with over 3,500 restaurants across India.
The move by Jubilant Foodworks, which operates brands such as Domino’s Pizza, Popeyes and Dunkin’ Donuts in India and neighbouring countries, comes amid rising interest in new-age food ordering platforms which allow restaurants to customize food ordering platforms, following the covid-led consumer preference for ordering food online.
More established restaurants, too, are building their own online ordering capabilities to escape hefty aggregator commissions and drive direct consumer engagement.
“This investment reflects the company’s intent of making strategic investments in promising startups and emerging businesses and is in line with the stated goal of building a multi-brand and multi-country food business powered by technology,” Jubilant Foodworks said in the filing to the exchanges.
In FY20, Hashtag Loyalty clocked revenues of ₹1.13 crore.
India’s food delivery market, dominated by aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy, is estimated at $4.2 billion.
The promoters of HT Media Ltd, which publishes Mint, and Jubilant Foodworks are closely related. There are, however, no promoter cross-holdings.
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