Indian food delivery firm Swiggy to supply home essentials

Indian online food delivery service Swiggy said on Tuesday it was expanding its ambit to include home delivery of essentials such as groceries from brick-and-mortar stores.

Swiggy has tied up with stores to deliver fruits and vegetables, baby care items and health products, it said in a statement.

The new service called ‘Swiggy Stores’, which will be accessible on its mobile app, will pit the Bengaluru-based startup against online grocers such as BigBasket, which is backed by Alibaba.

Swiggy, which runs a mobile-based application and a website for food-delivery services, currently operates in more than 80 Indian cities.

It was valued at a little more than $3 billion after raising $1 billion in its last funding round in December, led by South African internet giant Naspers Ltd.