Zomato acquires Sparse Labs to let customers track deliveries in real time

Restaurant search portal Zomato has acquired logistics technology startup Sparse Labs, aiming to improve the delivery experience by helping restaurants track delivery drivers, allocate orders to the most suitable person based on location, and show customers where their order is in real time.

Want to know the truth about your food delivery order? Here's how. 😘 https://t.co/25xzCVlkHN

— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) September 26, 2016

Sparse Labs, a two-year-old Gurgaon-based startup founded by Pankaj Batra has developed an Android-based mobile application which transmits delivery persons’ location to both the restaurant and the consumer in real time. This technology will be a significant enhancer for Zomato as 80 percent of its delivery orders are fulfilled by restaurants.

Notably, Zomato’s main rival Swiggy already uses the technology and counts it as the main differentiator.
“Joining forces with Sparse Labs will allow us to significantly improve the food ordering experience on the app, by giving users real-time GPS-based status updates on their order,” explained Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal , in a blog post.

“While we were already working on making this feature available for deliveries handled by our logistics partners, Sparse Labs will now help us enable delivery tracking for restaurant-owned fleets as well. At the restaurant end, this technology will help make deliveries highly cost- and time-efficient, allowing them to optimize delivery routes and ensuring minimal wait time for riders,” he added.

Sparse Labs’ store include a web dashboard, APIs, driver apps, customer notifications, maps and more, and is all about letting restaurants optimize their operations to minimize friction between a customer placing an order and receiving it. There is also an additional proprietary GPS tracker built by Sparse Labs which can be fitted to bikes, meaning restaurants can always see where a rider is — irrespective of whether their phone is switched on.

Following the acquisition, Sparse Labs will be rebranded as Zomato Trace and will be made available to restaurants “soon.”