Restaurant search online portal Zomato has acquired Sparse Labs, a logistics technology startup.The term of deal is undisclosed .
Sparse Labs specializes in helping restaurants track delivery drivers, allocate orders to the most suitable delivery person based on location, and show customers where their order is in real time.
Post the acquisition, Sparse Labs’ founder Pankaj Batra will join Zomato to help develop the app further.
“Joining forces with Sparse Labs will allow us to significantly improve the food ordering experience on the app, by giving users real-time GPS-based status updates on their order,While we were already working on making this feature available for deliveries handled by our logistics partners, Sparse Labs will now help us enable delivery tracking for restaurant-owned fleets as well. At the restaurant end, this technology will help make deliveries highly cost- and time-efficient, allowing them to optimize delivery routes and ensuring minimal wait time for riders.”
explained Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal .
Founded in 2014 by Pankaj Batra as a bootstrapped venture, Sparse Labs has developed an Android-based app which gives the rider’s location to both the customer and the restaurant in real-time. The rider can also use the app to access route information.
The app also allows riders to be allocated with orders based upon the proximity of their restaurants. It further employs machine learning to identify the rider’s familiarity with particular neighbourhoods in order to facilitate efficient deliveries.
Deepinder Goyal, Zomato’s co-founder and CEO stated in the blog post that,
“Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re taking a big leap forward in bolstering our delivery-tech capabilities with the acquisition of Sparse Labs, a logistics-tech startup that helps restaurants track and optimise their in-house delivery fleet.”
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