Rapido partners with Indian restaurant network to rival Zomato

Magicpin and Rapido have partnered to expand their presence in India’s food delivery market, aiming to compete with Zomato and Swiggy.

Magicpin operates a large restaurant network, while Rapido, an Indian ride-hailing startup, launched its food delivery platform Ownly in August.

The partnership will allow Ownly to access over 80,000 restaurants through Magicpin once onboarding is finished.

Magicpin will also use Rapido’s delivery fleet in select locations.

The move comes as Rapido seeks to scale Ownly beyond its initial launch in Bengaluru.

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Ownly (Rapido’s food service) says it can tap 80,000 eateries through Magicpin while Swiggy connects users to over 280,000 restaurants across hundreds of cities 1. Even if all sign up, Ownly would reach under 30% of Swiggy’s network.
Zomato had about 2.09 crore (roughly 21 million) monthly transacting users, while Swiggy had about 1.51 crore (about 15 million) 2. A newcomer will need time to match that order volume.
The tie-up gives no clarity on exclusivity for those 80,000 outlets. If they already list on Zomato and Swiggy, users will not switch unless Ownly offers lower prices or faster delivery, which is not promised.

Ownly joins Zomato, Swiggy, and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a government-backed e-commerce interoperability protocol in India 3. Restaurants now manage menus, inventory, or orders across at least four apps, which most point-of-sale (POS) tools were not built to handle.
UrbanPiper already supports ONDC integration. It raised $24 million from Sequoia, Tiger Global, Swiggy, and Zomato 4. Demand still exists for rivals with simpler interfaces or lower fees.
Software-as-a-Service providers that unify orders across all aggregators and give eateries better access to customer data, as ONDC proponents claim 5, can win share as multi-channel selling becomes common.