Food delivery startup Zoop enters into a deal with travel booking platform Ixigo for INR 12.54 crore which not only adds travel to their services, but also rolls out a 'Food on Train' feature.

Food delivery startup Zoop Web Services Pvt Ltd said it has raised INR 12.54 crore ($1.4 million) from travel aggregator Ixigo for a 51% stake. It is this strategic move which helps Ixigo improves its products and offerings in the travel sector.

Ixigo, however, can take its stake if it fulfills certain conditions. In 2016, Puneet Sharma and Manoj Kumar created Zoop, a railway food delivery startup that is authorized by IRCTC and has been running at 192 stations in India so far, not to mention the 400+ restaurants that partnered up.

According to Ixigo, Zoop earned INR 7.65 crore revenue in FY24, making the acquisition profitable. As plans are in motion to integrate delivery logistics into their train berths to improve delivery of meals on trains, the CEO Alok Bajpai hopes to improve train user experience.

The Ixigo then added a new feature (Food on Train) in their app which allows user to pre book meals which will be delivered at the stoppage stations. Real-time order tracking, and free cancellations before the cut off time, is another feature of this one.

The rail food delivery market is a big one, and could be in excess of a billion dollars in total terms, said Saurabh Singh, Ixigo group CFO.

In the past 5 years it raised $15 million, and went public with over 480 million active users. Going forward, the profits from the train food delivery will come from Ixigo’s latest acquisition, Zoop. On the BSE, ITC's shares fell 0.57 percent.