Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, Rambler & Co, a sizable Internet group, and tech businessmen Grigory Gurevich and Evgeny Malakhov are joining forces to create a multi function platform for the Russian restaurant and food delivery market. The news was reported earlier this month by the Russian business daily Vedomosti, which cited exchanges with several of the partners.
Dubbed ‘Foodplex,’, the platform will allow customers to make online bookings, order dishes even before coming to the restaurant, settle the bill without waiting for the waiter, give tips by cashless payment, and order home.
Most of these functions are already offered by the partners involved in Foodplex, but separately. The new venture will aims to create a more comprehensive service offer, notes Vedomosti.
Among domestic competitors are Yandex, the Russian search giant which recently merged its taxi hailing and food delivery services with Uber in Russia, and Mail.Ru Group, which acquired several food delivery startups last year.
Among smaller players on the Russian food delivery market are ChefMarket.ru, which received investments from Mitsui, GrowFood, which is funded by AddVenture, and Elementaree, which raised $2 million in the summer of last year.
Last year, Russian consumers’ expenses in cafés, bars and restaurants amounted to some 1.14 trillion rubles (roughly $20 billion), according to Vedomosti.
