Online food discovery and ordering platform Zomato has made a strategic investment in hyperlocal delivery companies Pickingo and Grab in order to provide last mile delivery for restaurants which are dine-in only and those who do not offer delivery, along with other restaurants. Pickingo will use the funds to scale with Zomato’s Order, the food ordering and delivery app, and strengthen its relationships with restaurants through it. Grab, previously known as Grab a Grub, has rolled out its services with Zomato in Mumbai and plans to extend it to other cities in the next couple of weeks. Zomato has also partnered with e-commerce logistics services provider Delhivery, which would help simplify operations for restaurants and enrich customer experience. Zomato said that it will launch its online ordering service in Dubai, Australia and South Africa this month and is in talks with hyperlocal logistics firms in other countries for its delivery venture. MediaNama's take: Through its last mile delivery services, Zomato now has a significant advantage over competitors like FoodPanda, TinyOwl, SpoonJoy and TastyKhana among others. For now, it appears that the restaurant does not need to have a tie up with Zomato to have its food delivered in the city. In April, we'd reported that after Zomato launched its ordering service, it did not confirm the order itself but had given its partner restaurants iPads with the Zomato app built in. This acted as Zomato’s direct line with restaurants which needed order confirmation. However, with the new partnerships in place, Zomato itself will become a…
