Foodtech startups in India have taken center-stage the last couple of months, even overtaking the spotlight from the Indian e-commerce space. From expanfsion plans of biggies like Zomato and FoodPanda, to recent funding rounds of startups like Swiggy, TinyOwl, Dazo (formerly TapCibo) and Grab.in, there seems a trend of not just customers but also VCs putting their money where their mouth is. After all just the food services industry is touted to be a $50 billion market and growing at 16-20% each year.

While you may hear of startups once they turn big or in the news for funding, at YourStory we have been able to discover promising new ones much earlier. Here’s a look at the food startups that presented during our Food Tech Crowd Pitch Challenge last month in Bangalore, held in collaboration with crowd engagement platform Catapooolt.

Feazt: The platform brings together housewives, aspiring chefs, networkers, foodies and travellers who wish to meet-up over food. Now with Feazt one may never need to eat alone.

Bueno Kitchen: A platform that let’s one order and deliver food from their own, franchise or partner spoke kitchens. So whether it’s Lebanese, Mexican, American, Indian, Asian, Italian or any other European cuisine, Bueno aims to provide something for everyone.

Cheqmate: They are attempting to create a more efficient order and pay restaurant system primarily with the help of one’s phone. By using data, facilitating cashless payments and automating the process of ordering food, their goal’s to make queues a thing of the past.

Clozerr: This marketing and loyalty automation platform seeks to help businesses retain, acquire, reward, engage, analyse and reach out to their customers. Here customers can check-in at their favourite places with a single tap and get rewarded.

DudeGenie: For all food needs, grocery purchases and anything else one may need, DudeGenie will help deliver it to them. All one needs to do is to text (SMS or WhatsApp) to make one’s life much more convenient.

FalafelFactory: This startup saw a great potential in authentic Middle Eastern food in India and now offers them on-the-go to customers. Through their central kitchens, partner outlets and low cost delivery teams, access to Falafels will be made easy.

FromaHome: They are attempting to solve the challenge of home cooked food not being easily accessible by single men and women across Indian cities. This is being pursued by creating a community of homemakers and good cooks willing to list their menu online to receiving orders.

Tandurust: This startup reaches out to fitness enthusiasts, health conscious people as well as those with medical conditions and helps deliver healthy and balanced meals to their offices and homes.

Gullu’s Kitchen: This food startup makes use of college campus to set-up their kitchen, and from there reach out to people. The main target is the student community, who are believed to have frequent hunger pangs, fewer options to buy food and can make better use of technology to order food.

HomeKitch: Here’s another startup that provides a platform for home-makers, professional cooks to list their food items for bachelors, students and other people to order online. They feel households will be able make additional income as there’s a demand for homemade food in Indian cities.

HungryBells: This app seeks to make use of the hyperlocal trend to help customers discover their favourite food items and brands. Besides discovering new dishes, they seek to provide useful information to customers based on their interests and taste profiles.

Done Solutions: For the food industry they seek to address challenges ranging from lack of multiple modes of ordering, customer engagement, options to up-sell, actionable insights and more, through their cloud-based order management, CRM and analytics platform.

EatonGo: A cloud-based breakfast and brunch restaurant with door delivery, EatonGo seeks to offer all major cuisines of the world to its customers. They are keen to focus on the health conscious and those with less time to make a healthy breakfast.

MeDine: This startup aims to drive offline consumer behaviour through data sciences and technology. In their model, restaurants pay MeDine (now BountyApp) for foot traffic, while customers get rewards by checking-in places.

Pickle&Powder: This startup has worked on a specialised food shopping portal open for all authentic and homemade specialties like masala powders, pickles and sweets.

PlaceofOrigin: Another ‘back to roots’ focused startup, Place of Origin seeks to bring legendary food from different parts of India to your homes. They work with partners who help deliver these items once customers place their orders online.

TheFirstMeal: This food-tech startup also enables individuals and businesses order breakfast and brunch at any place of their convenience. Here the breakfast can be customised in terms of menu, packaging, delivery and payment options.

The event’s startups and delegates came from all over — not just from Bangalore but also from Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and even smaller towns like Coimbatore. These startups made elevator pitches to a connected audience and an expert panel of judges that included the likes of angel investors like Ravi Gururaj and seasoned F&B entrepreneurs like MastKalandar’s Pallavi Gupta. While the panel picked ‘Bueno Kitchen’ and ‘Feazt’ as its winners, the crowd’sfavourite turned out to be ‘PlaceofOrigin’.

It needs to be reiterated that most of these startups have been set up only a few weeks ago and it will be interesting to watch their progress in the coming months. Stay tuned for more exciting stories and event updates.

Source: Yourstory