Foodtech startup Swiggy has shortlisted four drone startups to command its grocery delivery project in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR. The four drone startups selected for the projects are:
- Garuda Aerospace,
- Skyeair Mobility,
- ANRA+TechEagle Consortia, and
- Marut Dronetech.
The captain will assess the feasibility of using drones for Swiggy’s grocery delivery service named Instamart. Drones will be utilized to refill stocks between seller-run dark stores and a ‘common customer point’.
The pilot run will be managed in two phases. In the first situation, Garuda and Skyeair will run the pilot project in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, respectively. The first pilot is going to begin in the first week of May.
The second pilot by ANRA+TechEagle and Marut Dronetech will commence after collating the learning from the first tranche. Swiggy said our intention is to use treasure learning from the first tranche and design a tranche two experiments to specifically address any shortcomings that are identified.
Swiggy raised a Request for Proposal (RFP) a few weeks ago for the project. The startup received 345 registrations in response to the proposal. The four startups were selected after an evaluation process covering various rounds of legal, financial, and technical. In January this year, Zypp Electric revealed that it would begin drone delivery of packages in five cities – Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi-NCR.
In December 2021, Swiggy and ANRA Technologies jointly conducted 300 drone deliveries of food and medicines across the country.
In June last year states including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Punjab also tested long-range drone deliveries.
The Indian government targets to make the country a global drone hub by 2030. In the current scenario, India is currently a small part in the segment, while the global market is led by countries like the US, China and Israel.
