Coca-Cola India has acquired a 15% stake in Hashtag Loyalty that operates Thrive — a food-tech company that offers an online ordering system for restaurants.
In 2021, Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd (JFL), that operates pizza chain Domino’s in India picked up a 35% stake in Hashtag Loyalty.
In a filing to the exchanges on Monday, JFL said that Hashtag Loyalty, associate of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited has entered into a securities subscription agreement dated 17 April with Coca-Cola India pursuant to which the new investor has acquired 15% stake in Hashtag. As a result, JFL’s stake in Hashtag has reduced from 35% to 29.75%.
Thrive provides restaurants with a modern ordering solution for restaurants operating almost like an alternative to the large aggregators Zomato and Swiggy. Thrive partners with restaurants and allows them to receive orders online and incorporate tech-enabled features such as a digital menu, WhatsApp ordering, menu management and order management. It also helps build microsites for individual restaurants, multi-outlets, and even larger F&B corporations, from which customers can place their orders directly, instead of opting for an aggregator platform.
The commission charged restaurants per order by Thrive is as low as 3%, in comparison to the 25-30% charged by large food delivery aggregators.
Currently, over 14,000 restaurants across 80 cities in India use Thrive, founded in 2020.
The deal also entails Coca-Cola beverages being made available along with online orders placed via the Thrive platform.
“This presents a great opportunity for both Thrive and Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd. given the online food delivery market’s projected rapid growth and contribution to the total food services industry,”
Thrive said in a blog post on its website.
According to Business Insider, by 2025 the number of users of online food delivery services in India will grow to 60 million people, and the sector itself will account for about 18% of the total food service industry in the country.
Source: Mint, Business Insider India
