Swiggy acqui-hires Bengaluru-based startup for skills and expertise of staff

Online food ordering and delivery firm Swiggy Monday said it has acqui-hired Bengaluru-based AI start-up Kint.io. As part of this acqui-hire, the founding members of Kint.io Pavithra Solai Jawahar and Jagannathan Veeraraghavan will join the company's team, Swiggy said in a statement. Swiggy, however, did not disclose the financial details of the deal.

Acqui-hiring refers to buying out a company or an entity primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff, rather than for its products or services.

The team at Kint.io will join the company to boost its computer vision technology and superior consumer experience, the statement added. Commenting on the development, Swiggy Engineering and Data Sciences Head Dale Vaz said: "This acqui-hire is part of Swiggy's strategy to scale our tech prowess by bringing in entrepreneurial teams that can solve unique customer problems while leveraging the network and resources at Swiggy."

Kint.io is the first technology-led acqui-hire for Swiggy, as it makes large investments in its long-term strategy of building AI-first platforms, the statement said. "This is a great opportunity for us to show scale and address a-billion-people problems through AI," Kint.io co-founders Pavithra Solai Jawahar and Jagannathan Veeraraghavan said.

(With inputs from agencies.)