Meals on wheels: India’s answer to Uber gets into food delivery with launch of Ola Cafe

Ola, India’s top homegrown on-demand car service, is trying something new today with the launch of Ola Cafe.

Ola’s food delivery service is now live, accessible in the car-booking app in four Indian cities – Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai. It’s available only from noon to 11pm for lunch, afternoon snacks, and dinner. Hungry buyers can pay with Ola Money or cash, according to the hat-tip to Economic Times.

This is what it looks like in the Ola app:

See: India’s 15 best-funded startups – INFOGRAPHIC

The service seems to emulate Uber’s US-only UberFresh, which first launched last August. It’s also taking on Rocket Internet’s Foodpanda and several other web-connected meal dispatch services. It’s not clear if Ola Cafe is using Ola cars – or possibly the Ola Auto option for motor-rickshaws – or if this entails an entirely new network of motorbike deliveries. The Ola Cafe site references “delivery boys”, but doesn’t clarify how they’re traveling. We’ve contacted Ola for details on this.

The fast-growing Indian startup – which acquired a rival service for US$200 million earlier this month – is taking on Uber and an array of taxi app rivals in the country. It has more than 60,000 taxis and cars available across the nation and is adding 1,000 more each day, the company said recently on its blog. It has 200,000 customers each day.

The addition of Ola Cafe – along with its Ola Prime tier – shows that it’s learning from Uber in making its service a lifestyle choice as well as a transportation solution.

(Source: Economic Times)