Indian Angel Network Portfolio Company Just-Eat And Hungry Zone Announce Business Partnership

Bangalore, India, January 13, 2011: Hungry Zone, India’s leading online food ordering and restaurant table reservation platform, today announced that, Just-Eat, UK’s largest online takeaway ordering service, has acquired a majority shareholding in the company and will invest $5-10 million over the next three years into this Joint Venture. Founded in July 2006 and headquartered in Bangalore, India, Hungry Zone enables its customers to place online home delivery orders from over 650 restaurants serving over 40 different cuisines.
This deal is the first major investment of its kind where European e-commerce has invested in India and will provide a strong foundation for the Joint venture to expand into all Indian metropolitan and metropolis cities starting with Mumbai and Delhi shortly.
Commenting on the deal Ritesh Dwivedy, founder and CEO of Hungry Zone, said, “Just-Eat is the leading global player in online food ordering, so the combination of Just-Eat’s best practices, with our strong local knowledge and technical prowess derived from 4 years of operations in India, will drive growth for many years to come. Our proven business model and 200,000 loyal customers will only grow with our new partners thereby helping us expand our footprint in other major cities.”
Wishing the passionate and committed Hungry Zone team the very best, Joe Fernandes, Indian Angel Network member and Director on Hungry Zone Board, said, “For Indian Angel Network, the investment in Hungry Zone went beyond the financial assistance made in 2008. Crucial inputs on strategy, running and managing the business and evaluating approaches to grow business have made Hungry Zone grow ahead of competitors. With its proven business model and relationship with Just-Eat, leader in online food delivery chain in 8 countries, Hungry Zone will be able to scale its operations with speed and serve a much bigger customer base.”
Klaus Randel Nyengaard, Group CEO, Just-Eat said, “The acquisition of a controlling interest in Hungry Zone marks the first step of Just-Eat’s expansion into Asia. The synergy between the two companies is compelling and we’re very excited to be working with such a strong local team. India has an exotic and rich culinary heritage; thereby catering to the variant foodies requires an innovative company like Hungry Zone to understand their preferences and I’m very impressed with their results to date.”
The Just-Eat Group operates in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Canada and India.

About the Just-Eat Group
Just-Eat, founded in Denmark in 2000, is based in London and is now active in ten countries around the globe. Just-Eat delivers over 100,000 meals a day and has received more than 10 million orders since the site launched. There are currently over 14,000 takeaway restaurants signed up to Just-Eat’s site which uses proprietary technology to offer a seamless on-line ordering service. Just-Eat is currently generating over £200 million in revenue per year for the restaurant industry and was recently listed in the TechCrunch Europe Top 100 Index 2010. For more information, please log on: www.just-eat.co.uk

About Indian Angel Network (IAN)
India's first network of business angels with an incubator, IAN invests in start-ups and early stage ventures with an investor base of 140 investors. Budding entrepreneurs gain access to vast business networks of IAN’s influential members and their networks. Most investee companies treat this of as much value as the strategic direction, operational guidance and financial investment they get from IAN. IAN has so far invested in 23 companies, including 4 located overseas. For more information, please log on: www.indianangelnetwork.com

About Hungry Zone
Hungry Zone is India's premium online food ordering and table booking platform. Founded in 2006 by a group of IITans as the pioneer in this business in India, Hungry Zone today has 650 restaurants and 100,000 registered users placing 10,000 home delivery orders and 16,000 tables covers a month generating $1 million revenue for the restaurant industry. Hungry Zone was the first company in this vertical to get the first round of angel funding in 2008 from the Indian Angel Network. For more information, please log on: www.hungryzone.com

India's first network of business angels with an incubator, IAN invests in start-ups and early stage ventures with an investor base of 140 investors. Budding entrepreneurs gain access to vast business networks of IAN’s influential members and their networks. Most investee companies treat this of as much value as the strategic direction, operational guidance and financial investment they get from IAN. IAN has so far invested in 23 companies, including 4 located overseas. For more information, please log on: www.indianangelnetwork.com

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This release was published on openPR.