Online food delivery services provider Zomato is gearing up to launch a new service that intends to fulfill delivery within 10 minutes. The announcement was made by the company’s founder Deepinder Goyal in a blog post on Monday.

The new service christened as Zomato Instant will help the company to deliver food to the customer in a record 10 minutes. The company will pilot Zomato Instant with four stations in Gurugram from next month onwards.

“The customers are increasingly demanding quicker answers to their needs. They don’t want to plan, and they don’t want to wait. I started feeling that the 30-minute average delivery time by Zomato is too slow, and will soon have to become obsolete. If we don’t make it obsolete, someone else will,” wrote Mr. Goyal in his post.

“Innovating and leading from the front is the only way to survive (and therefore thrive) in the tech industry. And here we are… with our 10-minute food delivery offering – Zomato Instant,” he added.

Zomato will use technology like demand prediction algorithms, AI, and robotics to make the promise of 10-minutes delivery to the customers. As per the blog, the fulfilment of the quick delivery promise will rely on the finishing stations’ network, which is located in close proximity to high-demand customer neighbourhoods.

Fresh Investments

The development comes at a time when Zomato is making investments in quick delivery services and robotics segments. Last week it had announced a $5 million investment in robotics company Mukunda Foods which designs and manufactures smart robotic equipment to automate food preparation for restaurants.

Zomato Board had also approved to grant a loan of up to $150 million to Grofers India Private Limited (GIPL) which operates quick commerce start-up Blinkit.

The company will also depend on sophisticated dish-level demand prediction algorithms, and future-ready in-station robotics are employed to ensure the food is sterile, fresh, and hot at the time it is picked by the delivery partner.

Zomato’s finishing stations will house 20-30 bestseller items dishes from various restaurants based on demand predictability and hyperlocal preferences.

“Due to demand predictability at a hyperlocal level, we expect that the price for the customer will get significantly reduced, while the absolute margin/income for our restaurant partners as well as our delivery partners, will remain the same,” added Mr. Goyal.