Swiggy ropes in Mukesh Bansal as a strategic advisor

Bansal recently sold his fashion discovery portal Myntra to e-commerce giant Flipkart

Online food ordering and delivery firm Swiggy has roped the blue-eyed-boy of India's startup ecosystem Mukesh Bansal as a strategic advisor on its board. The announcement comes soon after Swiggy raised $15 million in fresh funding and is beginning to eye profitability over the next two years.

Bansal, who sold his fashion discovery portal Myntra to e-commerce giant Flipkart, is now starting up again with CureFit, a health-tech company he founded along with his colleague at Flipkart Ankit Nagori. The venture has so far raised $15 million from Accel, IDG and Kalaari.

"Mukesh Bansal brings immense expertise in establishing strong leadership teams and scaling up an organisation through rapid growth. His strong customer focus and business fundamentals will be crucial pillars for Swiggy," said the company in a statement.

 

As Swiggy looks to fundamentally alter consumer's behaviour, getting them to use its service upwards of 15 times a month from just a few times on average today, Bansal's expertise in scaling businesses will become crucial. Even at Flipkart, Bansal was part of the core team a time when the company's growth was going through the roof.

Boosting unit economics while continuing to rapidly scale its business is one of Swiggy's biggest challenges, and something Bansal executed brilliantly at Myntra. Today Myntra is the crown jewel in Flipkart's crown, and has become one of its strongest weapons in keeping an impatient Amazon at bay.

"We now have Mukesh Bansal on board as we navigate the complexities of a rapidly growing business and build the foundation of a very valuable company. He brings an intricate familiarity with the e-commerce business, metrics, goals and complexities. His guidance shall help the leadership team achieve the goal of changing the way India eats," said Sriharsha Majety, co-founder and CEO at Swiggy.

Swiggy, which has raised close to 75 million in venture capital, making it one among the largest food-tech companies in India. It's most recent $15 million round came on the back of a purge in the food-tech space that saw several startups die. The investment in Swiggy shows renewing investor confidence in the space as well as in Swiggy.

From well over 100 food-tech startups, only a dozen or so remain, including Zomato, FoodPanda, Swiggy and Freshmenu. Going forward, it will become a battle between these larger players to capture the market and fight it out for the consumer's Rupees.