Food ordering startup Foodpanda has raised close to Rs 10 crore from Berlin-based parent Jade Gmbh and Co, according to documents available with the registrar of companies. The development comes at a time when the company is looking to raise funds from external investors and has also hired an investment banker O3 Capital for the same.

In an exclusive interaction with Saurabh Kochhar, Chief Executive of the company confirmed the development. The company received this fresh tranche in August, 2016. Earlier, Jade Gmbh had invested close to Rs 150 crore in multiple tranches between July 2015 and June 2016.

Last year in May, Foodpanda had raised USD 100 million in Series E funding led by hedge fund Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. While commenting on the external round, Kochhar declined that the company was in an immediate need of the same. “These are the conversations which are always on. We needed a bit more structure, so we hired O3. It is a perennial activity. It is a good to have, not a must have for us,” he said.

Interestingly, this also comes at a time when there are reports claiming that the company may opt for a sale as well. On the road to recovery Foodpanda runs both marketplace and the delivery business for its partner restaurants in India. It currently works with over 12,000 restaurants. In order to drive better commissions, the company is rapidly expanding its delivery business. It currently serves 40 percent of the merchants through delivery. It plans to expand this to 50 percent in the next six months.

“From December till now, we have moved it from 20 percent to 40 percent. It will become 50 percent over the next six months,” Kochhar said. While the commission earned on the marketplace ranges between 15 to 20 percent, the same increases to around 25 percent, where Foodpanda is taking care of the deliveries. The deliveries are mostly done by Foodpanda’s own delivery guys. It currently claims to have 1500-2000 riders.

The food-tech sector which became a hot favourite of the investors in 2014 and part of 2015, suddenly, witnessed interest drying up in the second half of 2015. The venture capital firms became cautious of putting in money in the sector which also resulted into many start-ups winding up operations. Slowly, the investors money seem to be coming back to the sector with companies such as Box8 raising Rs 50 crore from IIFL Seed Ventures Fund, a unit of IIFL Holdings Ltd, among others.

It seems that the focus have shifted from mere customer acquisition to profitability. Foodpanda did not disclose the number of orders it generates on a daily basis. It however, too claims to be making money on every order now. The average ticket size of the orders is Rs 450-500. Foodpanda largely competes with Zomato which last raised USD 60 million and Bengaluru-based Swiggy.