Online food delivery platform Zomato has acquired a Lucknow-based startup TechEagle Innovations, which works exclusively on drones. This acquisition will help Zomato move towards offering drone-based food delivery in India by creating a hub-to-hub delivery network powered by hybrid multi-rotor drones.
TechEagle was founded by IIT Kanpur alumni Vikram Singh Meena in 2015 during his college days. It works with a prime focus on custom-made drones capable of carrying up to 5 kg payloads.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) had recently legalised flying commercial drones and also announced a policy called Drone Regulations 1.0. While these guidelines banned the use of drones for delivery of goods and food, minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha hinted at including a clause on the application of drones for ecommerce and food delivery in the draft Drone Regulations 2.0
“Our first ‘delivery job’ currently is to design multi-rotor drones that can pick up a payload under 5 kg and set up drone delivery circuits for reducing the last mile delivery leg. We believe that robots powering last-mile delivery is an inevitable part of the future and hence is going to be a significant area of investment for us,” said Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO, Zomato,
