Coca-Cola acquires 15% stake in food delivery platform Thrive

Beverage maker Coca-Cola India has acquired 15% stake in food delivery platform Thrive owned by Hashtag Loyalty, making it Coca-Cola's first investment in a startup in the country.
Krishi Fagwani, co-founder and chief executive of Thrive, which competes with delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato, said in a statement late Monday that Thrive and Coca-Cola will collaborate to bring positive disruption in the food-tech space.

“We found excellent synergies with Coca-Cola India’s leadership team in our outlook on the market and how we can work towards bringing a change,” Fagwani said.

ET broke the story in its April 17 edition.

In a related development, Domino’s Pizza operator Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd’s (JFL) stake in Thrive has come down to 29.75% from 35% on a fully diluted basis. Hashtag has raised the capital at a pre-money valuation of Rs 104.68 crore, and this is not a related party transaction, JFL said in a stock exchange filing.

Coca-Cola’s strategic investment in Thrive will enable it a distinct edge over rivals.

Exclusive: Coca-Cola set to buy minority stake in online food-ordering startup Thrive

Greishma Singh, vice president, customer & commercial leadership, Coca-Cola India & Southwest Asia, said: “Meals are a critical consumption occasion for our beverages, so the eat and drink channel is an ideal place for us to be investing in technology and innovating to digitally enable every outlet to provide a superior consumer experience online and offline.”

The partnership will facilitate Coca-Cola, which make Coke, Thums Up and Sprite aerated drinks, Minute Maid juices and Georgia coffee, to promote its beverages along with the food orders consumers place on the Thrive app, customisation, sell package deals and meal combinations, and push loyalty codes.

Thrive has partnerships with over 14,000 restaurants, and a growing base of key customers.

Coca-Cola has select exclusive global partnerships such as that with fast food chain McDonald’s, which sells only Coca-Cola’s beverages at its outlets.

Thrive said the collaboration with Coca-Cola will enable consumers to order beverages with meals from its partner restaurants. “This presents a great opportunity for both Thrive and Coca-Cola India given the online food delivery market's projected rapid growth and contribution to the total food services industry,” the company said.

Coca-Cola has been promoting associations and pairings with meals and food as a core strategy to increase consumption occasions. Last year in September, Coca-Cola launched its global meals platform called Coke is Cooking in India starting with Kolkata.

At that time, Coca-Cola vice-president, head of marketing, India and South West Asia, Arnab Roy, had told ET the company is looking at a vast opportunity to drive consumption with food pairings in India. “Most of the consumption of Coca-Cola brands happens over food. The closest example is McDonald’s. If one goes to McDonald’s, chances are high that the food would be paired with Coke,” Roy had said.

Thrive Direct allows restaurants to create online ordering microsites, reducing their reliance on aggregators. Earlier this year, Thrive launched a beta version of its discovery platform for consumers. Its discovery platform offers restaurants low commissions, complete access to customer data and a clear distinction between new and repeat customers.

Set up by three entrepreneurs Dhruv Dewan, Karan Chechani and Krishi Fagwani in 2020, Thrive enables consumers to order food across restaurant partners. The platform charges one-fourth the commissions from restaurants compared with 18-25% charged by Zomato and Swiggy.