Startup and VC Ecosystem Updates | Issue# 13 [August 23, 2025]
What?
Rapido has officially launched its food delivery platform Ownly in select Bengaluru neighborhoods, marking the ride-hailing unicorn’s bold attempt to challenge the dominance of food delivery giants Zomato and Swiggy. After months of speculation and planning, the service is now operational in Koramangala, HSR Layout, and BTM areas, offering an innovative model that challenges industry conventions. Here is a more on this from Inc42 and YourStory.
While this development was already in the making, the timing could not be more strategic. The food delivery sector has witnessed a slowdown in recent times, broadly attributed to waning consumer demands and quick commerce penetration. With growth slowing and restaurant partners increasingly frustrated with hefty platform charges, Ownly enters the market positioned as the outsider competitor. Let us examine whether this David can actually take on the Goliaths of Indian food delivery.
The Zero-Commission Gambit
Ownly’s core strategy revolves around eliminating the traditional commission structure that has become synonymous with food delivery platforms. While established players typically charge 25-35% commission per order from restaurants, Rapido’s newly introduced service charges a flat INR 25 commission fee plus GST regardless of order value. Importantly, with Ownly, there are no separate platform fees.
This approach extends to consumers as well. Where competitors impose platform fees, packaging charges, discounting, advertising fees, and variable delivery costs, Ownly currently waives delivery charges entirely for customers. The pricing promise is simple: what you see is what you pay.
For restaurants, this translates to significantly higher margins on each order. Early feedback from partners suggests genuine enthusiasm. One restaurant owner noted that operations are “much cheaper” compared to existing platforms, and highlighted the absence of advertising clutter that typically crowds competitor apps, as reported by Inc42.
Rapido has mandated restaurant partners to offer at least four meal options under INR 150, directly targeting affordability concerns that have limited food delivery adoption among price-sensitive consumers. Ownly has also advised certain restaurant partners to curate budget food combos under INR 159. Moreover, the service offers an option to order food under INR 250. Essentially, Rapido is banking on reasonably-priced meals for customers and a flat commission system for restaurants to drive its food delivery play.
Market Entry Strategy and Early Performance
Rather than attempting a city-wide launch, Ownly has strategically focused on three high-density neighborhoods in Bengaluru that are known for their food delivery volumes – a data-backed approach. This concentrated approach allows for better operational control while building initial momentum.
The app includes thoughtful features like a dedicated vegetarian mode for vegetarian restaurants and budget-based filtering options, addressing specific consumer preferences that popular food-delivery platforms often overlook. Currently available only on Android, the service appears to be gaining traction among both restaurants and customers in its limited coverage areas.
The startup’s 30 Mn monthly transacting users provide significant advantages over new and upcoming food delivery startups. While Ownly currently relies on third-party delivery partners and restaurant fleets, the potential to eventually leverage Rapido’s driver partners represents an interesting future opportunity that could fundamentally alter delivery economics and create competitive advantages.
The Monetization Challenge
The elephant in the room remains revenue generation. With minimal restaurant fees and no consumer charges, Ownly’s current model appears unsustainable at scale. Rapido has indicated plans to introduce a flat subscription-based model for restaurant partners while maintaining its zero-commission promise.
This approach mirrors Rapido’s successful disruption of ride-hailing, where the company achieved second position in market share by eliminating driver commissions. However, food delivery presents different challenges, including higher operational complexity and quality control requirements.
The startup’s 30 Mn monthly users and established delivery infrastructure provide significant advantages over new and upcoming food delivery startups. Whether this ecosystem approach of leveraging their bike-taxi partners for delivery operations can create meaningful business advantages remains to be proven. Additionally, a long-pending ask from industry bodies – access to sales data – is something Ownly plans to fulfill for restaurants. If implemented, this could be a promising revenue stream for Ownly.
Industry Context and Competitive Response
Ownly’s launch coincides with broader industry headwinds. Both major players – Zomato and Swiggy reported declining gross order values in recent quarters, while quick commerce platforms have begun capturing food delivery market share through private label offerings, such as the Swiggy-owned Snacc, Blinkit’s Bistro, and Zepto Cafe by Zepto.
This creates an interesting dynamic where Rapido forays into the market during a time when the dominant players are facing their own challenges. Historical attempts by ride-hailing companies to crack food delivery have largely failed – Ola’s multiple attempts ended in shutdowns, while Uber eventually sold its food delivery vertical Uber Eats to Zomato.
Rapido has partnered with the restaurants affiliated with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) provides Ownly with industry endorsement and restraurant network access. The ride-hailing unicorn has worked closely with NRAI to help formulate the best commercial and logistical structures for restaurant and food delivery. NRAI has long criticized existing platforms for high commissions, additional charges, and opaque practices, making them natural allies for Rapido’s disruptive approach. Notably, this marks NRAI’s second major effort to challenge the duopoly. Their previous attempt relied on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) apps like Paytm, Ola Foods, and Magicpin. While ONDC promised affordability, these apps were not focused on food delivery, leading to a fragmented experience in fulfillment, customer support, and other services.
Interestingly, Swiggy, which holds a 12% stake in Rapido, is “actively re-evaluating” its investment following the launch of Ownly due to the conflict of interest.
Thoughts
Rapido’s entry into food delivery represents more than just another competitor launching – it is a fundamental challenge to the economic model that has defined the foodtech industry. The company aims to bring price and product to the forefront of the food delivery segment through a strategy focused on reasonable pricing and a flat commission model, rather than relying on discounting or advertising. This outlines Rapido’s stand for fairness and transparency. The zero-commission approach directly addresses pain points that have plagued the sector for years, potentially creating genuine differentiation in a that is market often criticized for commoditization – where the likes of Zomato and Swiggy have become nearly indistinguishable in offerings – similar restaurants, pricing, discounts, and delivery model.
The timing appears well-calculated. With growth slowing and profitability pressures mounting, established players may be less willing to engage in aggressive price wars that could further damage unit economics. This creates space for an alternative model to gain foothold.
What makes Rapido’s position particularly compelling are two important advantages. First, while Rapido is currently relying on third-party riders, its extensive bike-taxi fleet offers future potential to reshape delivery economics. If integrated, this fleet could provide unique efficiencies, such as better fleet utilization, cross-leveraging between mobility and food delivery, and denser rider availability – advantages that go beyond the standard bike-based operations of Swiggy and Zomato. This infrastructure advantage could provide significant cost benefits that help sustain the zero-commission model. Also, this would ensure improved earning prospects for Rapido’s rider partners.
Second, Rapido’s customer data from over 75 Mn users in their mobility business creates powerful cross-platform opportunities. Understanding customer movement patterns, preferred locations, and timing preferences could enable better demand forecasting and route optimization for food delivery. Insights from how people move – like common routes, hotspots, and peak travel times – can serve as critical signals for predicting when and where food demand might spike. More importantly, the existing customer base provides a ready acquisition pool, potentially reducing the massive customer acquisition costs that have plagued food delivery startups like Zomato and Swiggy.
Interestingly, Rapido is planning to enter the carpooling and bikepooling segment with its new app Hopr, which will arm them with more customer data and mobility infrastructure. Whether or not that aids Ownly remains to be seen.
However, several challenges remain to be tackled. Food delivery requires massive scale to achieve operational efficiency, and Ownly starts from essentially zero market share. Customer acquisition costs would be substantial, and maintaining service quality while scaling rapidly has proven difficult for many startups.
The monetization strategy also requires validation. While restaurants may welcome lower fees initially, their willingness to pay subscription charges depends on order volume delivery. Without the data and marketing tools that the likes of Zomato and Swiggy offer, Ownly must prove it can drive meaningful business growth for partners. Note that Ownly is yet to start charging delivery fees from restaurants and customers, underscoring the early stage of its monetization model.
Perhaps most importantly, the incumbent response will be crucial. If Zomato and Swiggy choose to match Ownly’s pricing or offer similar commission structures to retain restaurant partners, Rapido’s differentiation advantage could quickly evaporate and they would be forced to rethink their strategy. Nevertheless, Rapido does have prior experience challenging established incumbents like Ola and Uber with its zero-commission ride-hailing model, which it claims helped it secure the second-largest market share, overtaking Ola Consumer.
What’s particularly interesting is how this reflects broader trends in Indian tech. The move away from pure growth-at-all-costs models toward sustainable unit economics has created opportunities for challengers offering more balanced value propositions. Rapido’s approach mirrors this shift by prioritizing partner economics over aggressive expansion.
The next 12-18 months will be crucial for Ownly and Rapido. Success will require not just maintaining the current value proposition, but proving that the model can scale profitably and sustainably while delivering superior outcomes for all stakeholders. If Rapido can achieve this balance, it may indeed become the first serious challenger to crack the food delivery duopoly.
The restaurant industry certainly hopes so. After years of accepting unfavorable platform terms due to lack of alternatives, they finally have a credible option that promises fundamentally different economics. Rapido is already an established brand in its own right. Whether Ownly can deliver on its promises while building a sustainable business remains the million-dollar question.
If you are interested to learn more, feel free to check out these reports from Inc42 and YourStory.
Thank you for reading through! I genuinely hope you found the content useful. Feel free to reach out to us at ankanatwork@gmail.com and share your feedback and thoughts to help us make it better for you next time.
Acronyms used in the blog that have not been defined earlier: (a) Venture Capital (VC), (b) Indian Rupee (INR), (c) Goods and Services Tax (GST), and (d) Million (Mn).