Gurgaon food startups with tech twist cook up a storm

GURGAON: The city is fast becoming a hotbed for food tech start-ups. With a huge multinational crowd, new players are entering the market across categories ranging from food aggregators to home chef providers to what they call the kitchen in the cloud.

In fact, the city is ranked just behind early starters Bangalore and Mumbai as the biggest test bed for food tech start-ups in India. "Within NCR, Gurgaon definitely offers a bigger market than South Delhi, and is at least four times the food tech market in Noida," said Rajesh Sawhney, founder, GSF tech accelerator. Sawhney has also founded Innerchef, which raised $1.66 million.

The start-ups might be serving food, but they identify themselves as tech firms, by marrying food and technology. All back-end processes are technology oriented, right from order to dispatch. Some are also working on ways for customers to track their food real time.

As of now, food tech is categorized in three categories — aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy, online delivery for companies which have a physical presence, and kitchens in the cloud. There are almost 30-40 players in Gurgaon's fast growing food tech business.

The demographic profile of Gurgaon residents is what makes the city most attractive to entrepreneurs and investors alike. "I think the reason why Gurgaon is booming with food entrepreneurs is that consumption of new trends is higher here than in any other city," said Kabir Jeet Singh, founder BurgerSingh, a Gurgaonbased start-up.