(Image source: The Economic Times)
Aniket Shah faced a daily problem that most people experience but few actually solve. He’d crave coffee and by the time it arrived, it had gone cold. He’d want a quick snack and end up waiting 45 minutes for something that should take five minutes. The food delivery industry had solved getting restaurant food home, but created a new problem: everything took too long.
In 2024, Shah launched Swish with co-founders Ujjwal Sukheja and Saran S. The startup delivers quality food in 10 minutes. Not just any food, but items you want when you want them. Coffee, burgers, snacks, and desserts. Things that don’t need elaborate preparation and can genuinely reach you in a fraction of traditional delivery time.
Within months, Swish raised $2 million in seed funding from Accel. The investors included Abhiraj Bhal and Varun Karthik from Urban Company, and Karthik Gurumurthy, former head of Swiggy Instamart. These aren’t casual backers. They understand hyperlocal commerce and the Indian market deeply.
The Complexity Nobody Talks About
10-minute food delivery sounds simple. Shah was quick to point out it’s anything but. The company completely rethought how food delivery works.
Traditional delivery operates across 5 to 10 kilometers. Order goes to a restaurant, food gets made, delivery partner crosses the city. That’s why it takes 30 to 60 minutes. Swish flipped this entirely. The company operates “Delight Centers,” modified cloud kitchens where Swish controls everything: preparation, packaging, delivery assignment, and logistics. Every step optimizes for one purpose: hot food in 10 minutes.
The geographic radius is tiny. Swish delivers within 1.5 to 2 kilometers of each center. The menu is intentionally limited to 70 to 80 items. Beverages, snacks, and meals that cook quickly. No complex dishes. The company is even planning pizza, but only items that fit the speed-first approach.
Why This Works Now
Quick commerce proved Indian consumers want convenience. But quick commerce is mostly groceries and essentials. Food delivery remained stuck in the 30-to-60-minute model that Swiggy and Zomato established over a decade ago.
Others tried before. Zomato launched Zomato Instant in 2022 for 10-minute delivery but faced gig worker safety backlash and rebranded it away from that promise. Zepto launched a cafe service quietly. Swiggy launched Bolt recently, offering 10 to 15-minute delivery.
Swish entered a space where big players dabbled but hadn’t committed fully. And because the market genuinely wants this model, there’s room for a pure-play 10-minute specialist.
The Market Opportunity
Analysts estimate 10-minute food delivery could capture 10 to 20 percent of the overall food delivery market. That’s not all the market, but the segment willing to pay premium prices for ultra-fast delivery and limited menus.
Quick commerce itself is projected to reach $40 billion by 2030. If 10-minute food delivery captures even a fraction of that, the addressable market becomes genuinely massive. For a startup founded just over a year ago, the potential is enormous.
From Bangalore to National Scale
Swish currently operates in select Bangalore areas. The company planned to expand to four more areas and have around 150 Delight Centers by March 2025. That’s aggressive but necessary to establish dominance before larger competitors fully commit.
The seed capital gives Swish runway to expand rapidly. More importantly, the investor quality suggests they believe in Shah’s execution ability.
Why This Matters
The Swish story shows how markets evolve. A decade ago, Swiggy and Zomato made 30-minute delivery normal. Today, customer expectations have shifted again. People want faster and are comfortable with limited menus if it means getting food in minutes instead of hours.
Shah understood this shift before the market fully recognized it. He didn’t build a better restaurant discovery platform or a faster version of Zomato. He looked at where customer expectations were moving and built something designed specifically for that future.
Managing 150 modified cloud kitchens, coordinating hyperlocal delivery, and maintaining quality under extreme time pressure is genuinely difficult. Swish’s ability to attract top-tier investors suggests the team can execute at scale.
The Broader Context
Swish operates within India’s broader shift toward hyperlocal, on-demand services. Quick commerce platforms proved that consumers embrace new commerce categories. 10-minute food delivery is the logical next step.
The investors backing Swish are betting on an entire category. If Swish executes well, it positions itself as the market leader in this emerging space.
What’s Next
The real test is execution. Expanding from Bangalore to other metros. Managing 150 operational centers. Maintaining quality under extreme time pressure. Acquiring and retaining customers while managing unit economics. These are hard problems.
But investor backing from people who understand Indian commerce suggests the team has thought through challenges. Shah’s background and co-founder quality inspire confidence.
For entrepreneurs watching this space, the Swish story offers a valuable lesson. The biggest opportunities often lie not in building entirely new categories, but in reimagining existing ones around shifting customer expectations.
Whether Swish becomes a billion-dollar company or a successful regional operator, the model has proven genuine demand for 10-minute food delivery. The company has capital, team, and investor backing to capture meaningful opportunity.
In a startup ecosystem obsessed with moving fast, Swish is literally betting on speed.
