Hyperpure: Zomato’s sleeping giant is stirring

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster for foodtech giant Zomato. The Gurugram-based company has seen three of its top executives—including co-founder Mohit Gupta—exit the company. Alongside this, the company reportedly laid off 3% of its workforce.

For all of this, though, the company’s performance in the September 2022 quarter was encouraging. While Zomato remains deeply in the red, its net loss dropped from Rs 434.9 crore in the same quarter last year to Rs 250.8 crore. The company also saw its operational revenue rise 62% year-on-year, touching Rs 1,661.3 crore for the quarter.

Unsurprisingly, its food delivery operations—the company’s mainstay—continues to be the biggest contributor to its topline. However, it is Hyperpure—its B2B vertical which supplies fresh and packaged products to restaurants—that could be the company’s ace in the hole.

There was a time when Hyperpure appeared destined for the scrapheap of startup experimentation. Launched in mid-2018, Zomato promised the service would rapidly expand to 20 cities across the country. However, after setting up shop in Bengaluru and Delhi, any further expansion plans were halted by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.