e-commerce
Zomato ex-CMO Alok Jain’s foodtech Yumist raises USD 2 million
MUMBAI: India-based food delivery start up Yumist has raised $2 million in its pre-Series A round funding, with the Ronnie Screwvala owned venture capitalist Unilazer Venture as its leading investor. Existing Orios VP and Silicon Valley based investor Steven Lurie also participated in the investment round.
The foodtech start up launched by former Zomato CMO Alok Jain and Zing restaurant founder Abhimanyu Maheshwari in 2014 currently serves home-style meals prepared in their own kitchens at price points of Rs 65 onwards. Meals can be ordered through the Yumist app or website. The order is delivered in under 30 minutes, the service claims.
“The focus is on building a great customer experience and healthy unit economics, which has resulted in rapid organic growth for us. We’ll continue with this approach going forward,” Yumist co-founder and CEO Alok Jain informed a broadsheet on the new fundraiser.
With an aim to reduce its delivery cost from Rs 35 to Rs 20, the start-up plans to use the money raised to scale up in existing cities — Gurgaon, Delhi and Bengaluru till March, after which Yumist plans to expand to Mumbai and Pune.
“After this round, we will still keep our heads down until March in our current three cities, and show that we can be gross margin profitable at a company level,” said Jain revealed.
e-commerce
Instamart and Duolingo launch street spell check campaign for Instaprint
Duo the owl fixes signboard typos across cities to showcase instant printing.
MUMBAI: If spelling mistakes had a sworn enemy, it might just be a bright green owl with a printer. Instamart has teamed up with language learning platform Duolingo for a quirky nationwide campaign that turns everyday spelling errors into a public spectacle while promoting its instant printing service, InstaPrint. The playful activation takes aim at the many misspelled shop boards and public signs scattered across Indian streets. From “saloons” that promise haircuts rather than drinks to menus and posters peppered with punctuation mishaps, the campaign sends Duolingo’s mascot Duo on a mission to restore linguistic order.
Armed with Instamart’s instant printing feature, Duo prints corrected versions of the mistakes on the spot and pastes them over the originals. The result is a series of humorous street interventions that have quickly begun circulating on social media.
Photos and videos of the grammar correcting owl have been widely shared online, with amused users reacting to the unexpected spell check patrol. One user joked, “Ab ayega na maza bhidu,” capturing the internet’s delight at the unusual campaign.
Behind the humour lies a practical message. The activation is designed to showcase the capabilities of Instaprint, Instamart’s printing service that allows users to print documents and posters almost instantly.
The company says the feature is meant for everyday needs such as printing resumes, visa documents or last minute posters without the usual scramble to locate a print shop.
Instamart introduced Instaprint in 2025 across select metropolitan cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. The service allows users to order printed materials directly through the platform, extending the quick commerce model beyond groceries and household essentials.
By combining Duolingo’s famously persistent owl with India’s street level spelling quirks, the campaign taps into the internet’s long running fascination with grammar mistakes while demonstrating a real world use case for instant printing.
After all, in a world full of typos, sometimes what you really need is a quick printer and a very determined language teacher.
