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The funding will give the foodtech startup a year’s run-time, which reportedly laid off around 150 employees recently

Indian online food ordering platform TinyOwl has raised INR 50 crore (approximately US$7.7 million), co-led by existing investors Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners, a source close to the development told e27.

The capital will help the Mumbai-based startup in its on-going restructuring process, as it is trying to control burn rate and cut costs by outsourcing deliveries.

When contacted for a confirmation, TinyOwl CEO Harshvardhan Mandad told e27: “We are in the process of closing our funding and we will be able to share more details soon.”

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Recently, TinyOwl reportedly laid off around 150 employees, which it claimed was aimed at increasing efficiency, productivity, and redirecting the talent to focused departments.

The latest funding is expected to give TinyOwl a year’s runtime to focus on creating a sustainable business in the foodtech domain.

Founded in 2014 by a group of IIT graduates, the startup has now fully outsourced its last-mile delivery to its partners — including Roadrunnr, Opinio, and Shadowfax — that has helped it to focus more on core technology and processes, as well as to significantly cut delivery costs. It is now looking to fully move its order processing to a merchant app, and keep its call centre only for escalations and select restaurants.

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TinyOwl — which competes with the likes of foodpanda, TastyKhana, Just Eat, Swiggy, and now Zomato — earlier secured over US$16 million in its Series B round of funding from Matrix Partners, with participation from Sequoia and Nexus Venture Partners, early this year. Prior to that, it received US$3 million in Series A, co-led by Sequoia and Nexus, in December last year.

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