INDIA – Beverage giant, Coca-Cola is set to make its first investment in a startup in India after-market speculations have emerged that it’s going for a minority stake in online food ordering platform Thrive.
Thrive is a food search and delivery platform which has partnerships with over 5,500 restaurants and directly competes with Swiggy and Zomato.
The platform set up by three entrepreneurs Dhruv Dewan, Karan Chechani, and Krishi Fagwani in 2020, enables consumers to order food across restaurant partners and has a self-serve tool that offers restaurants the option of building their sub-portals on its platform so they can get direct online orders from consumers.
“The strategic investment will give Coca-Cola a distinct edge over rivals, as it will push consumers to order only Coca-Cola’s beverages along with the food orders, they place on the Thrive app, help them to customize orders, sell package deals and meal combinations, and push loyalty codes,” one of the executives familiar with the happenings told Economic Times retail.
Another source of the media house said the stake acquisition by Coca-Cola will drive consumer engagement for the beverage maker with both restaurants and consumers and give it access to consumer data since Thrive has a large base of mid-sized restaurant partners offering diverse cuisines.
“Thums Up, for example, goes well with Indian spicy cuisine while Maaza mango drink can be pushed at restaurants that focus on children,” the executive added.
Jubilant FoodWorks, which operates Domino’s Pizza in India, earlier purchased a 35 percent share in Thrive for around 224.75 crore to expand its direct delivery capabilities and gain access to consumer data, Business World reports.
Analysts argue that the share acquisition could be like the Coca-Cola and McDonald’s relationship, which started in 1955. So far, the corporation has concentrated on exclusive global relationships where sells its product to McDonald’s is cheaper than they do to any other restaurant. In turn, McDonald’s only offers Coca-Cola beverages in its restaurants.
Coca-Cola has been pushing associations and pairings with meals and food as one of its core strategies to increase consumption occasions, Sanket Ray, Coca-Cola president of India and SouthWest Asia, had said in a recent earnings call.
In September last year, Coca-Cola launched its global meals platform called Coke is Cooking in India, starting with Kolkata to push consumers to order its beverages along with food from restaurants.
The brand’s ambitious plans for the platform include hosting ‘Coke is Cooking’ festivals in one city in the world every week of the year in 2024.
The next destination would be Vietnam, where two of the major cities would be hosting the festival in a similar format, but with localized food and music built in.
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