Tag: BigBasket

Grocery etailer Grofers raises $220 million from investors led by SoftBank Vision Fund

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Grocery etailer Grofers on Wednesday raised $200 million in Series F funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund with Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global also participating in the funding round.

SoftBank’s move to further invest in Grofers also delayed the merger talks the grocery delivery service has had with its bigger rival, Alibaba-backed BigBasket.

Grofers’ fresh funding comes after homegrown rival Bigbasket, which is backed by China’s Alibaba Group, recently raised $150 million to hit a valuation of over $1 billion. Both the startups compete with the likes of Amazon.com and Walmart Inc’s ecommerce unit Flipkart for various categories.

“This latest investment will help scale the company to ensure many more customers can access the best quality products at the best prices,” chief executive Albinder Dhindsa said in a statement.

Grofers did not say what it was valued at after the funding.

Softbank’s Vision Fund was set up in 2017 and is now the world’s largest technology investment fund, with a portfolio that includes pioneer Uber Technologies Inc, chip designer ARM and shared workspace firm WeWork.

Founded in 2013 by IIT graduates Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers offers products across categories such as grocery, fruits and vegetables. It operates in 13 cities. Earlier,  Grofers has raised $301.8 million in multiple rounds from investors such as Sequoia and Tiger Global.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Bigbasket gets $150 million in fresh funding

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A group of investors including South Korea-based Mirae-Naver and China’s Alibaba Group has led a fresh $150 million funding round in online grocery company Bigbasket, the Indian startup said on Monday.

Bigbasket, which sells everything from groceries and fresh produce to pet food, competes with Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc’s e-commerce unit Flipkart in many categories.

The company has been investing in warehousing and logistics, as well as in expanding its delivery network to smaller towns and cities as it fights to keep its lead in the complex but fast growing grocery business.

Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund and Alibaba were joined by the UK government’s development finance institution, CDC Group, in the funding round, Bigbasket said. However, it did not mention what the company’s valuation would be post funding.

Bigbasket did not immediately provide more details about the deal.

Alibaba became the biggest shareholder in Bigbasket last year, after it led a $300 million funding round in the company, stepping up its competition with Amazon.

Chief Executive Hari Menon had then said it expected to break even between 2020 and 2022.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

BigBasket to invest $100 million to strengthen supply chain

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Alibaba-backed company BigBasket is pumping in $100 million (about Rs 698 crore) to strengthen its supply chain by setting up vending machines and smaller distribution centres across various cities it operates in.

The online grocery platform — which is registered as Supermarket Grocery Supplies — had recently raised $150 million in funding, led by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, CDC Group and Alibaba Group.

Founded in 2011, BigBasket operates in 25 Indian cities. It plans to utilise the proceeds of this fundraising – which has placed the Bengaluru-based company in the unicorn club (companies with valuation of $1 billion and above) – to further penetrate into existing markets with more investments in the first mile, scaling-up of its supply chain and for developing new reseller channels.

“We want to enable two-hour delivery in top 10 cities that we operate in by July this year. For that, we have been investing in strengthening our distribution centres. We have 18 large and 80 smaller distribution centres together with our resellers and this will be ramped to 20 large and 100 smaller ones by June this year,” BigBasket co-founder Vipul Parekh told PTI.

This move will help BigBasket reduce delivery time and ensure quality of dairy and fresh produce, he added.

The company expects its capital expenditure towards these initiatives to be about $100 million this year.

“We are ramping up our milk subscription business – BB Daily – under which we have built the supply chain to deliver milk and other items in the morning. The service was started around September last year and our sellers already carry out 90,000-100,000 orders a day. We are aiming to take this to a million orders a day and a stronger supply chain infrastructure will play a key role in this,” he said.

Another area where the company is investing is in towards setting up unmanned vending machines – BB Instant – in office and apartment complexes.

“We see a huge potential of these machines. Customers can use their app to access the machine and buy products. The only human intervention is in re-stocking. We have already placed such machines at 200 sites in Bengaluru and over the next one year, we want to have 2,000 such sites across the 10 large cities where we operate,” Parekh said.

Also, given that these machines are placed within apartment and office complexes, the risk of vandalism is lower.

Parekh said with these investments, BigBasket – which competes with SoftBank-backed Grofers as well as Amazon.in and Walmart-owned Flipkart – will continue to build further on its leadership in the grocery business.

“We have been re-engineering our supply chain to allow for faster delivery to our resellers and to reduce the time from farm to our customers. This coupled with an expansion in our range of private label products will create a solid foundation for growth in both revenue and profitability,” Parekh said.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

BigBasket raises $150 million in latest funding, attains unicorn status

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Online grocery delivery startup BigBasket has raised $150 million (about Rs 1,040 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by Alibaba and South Korean firm Mirae Asset, which will give the company a unicorn status.

The fundraising is a part of Bengaluru-based company’s new series F financing round.

The largest shareholder of BigBasket, Alibaba will invest $50 million in this round, while Mirae Asset will put in $59.9 million, the company said in a filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

UK government-owned financial institution CDC Group will invest $40 million, it said.

After the latest investments, Alibaba will hold 26.26 percent stake, while Mirae Asset and CDC Group will own 5.31 percent and 3.54 percent, respectively in BigBasket.

In February last year, the BigBasket has raised $300 million in its Series E round of funding led by Alibaba.

BigBasket, founded in December 2011, claims more than 10 million subscribers and close to 1 lakh orders per day.

Last year, BigBasket had acquired Pune-based RainCan and the Bengaluru-based Morning Cart to deliver milk to 20,000 customers.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

BigBasket likely to enter unicorn league after next fund raise, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Online grocery startup BigBasket is likely to enter the unicorn league after a new $150 million funding round, The Economic Times reported, citing sources.

The pre-money valuation of the company will touch $1 billion, the sources rold the paper, adding that the e-tailer’s existing investor backer Alibaba will infuse $50 million.

New investors, South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Management and UK Government-owned CDC are also taking part in the funding round, said the sources.

“For CDC, an investment in BigBasket would make sense, as they have a developmental angle through farming and sourcing the company does to procure products. There is a possibility that CDC may buy a chunk of secondary shares as well, from existing shareholders,” people familiar with the matter told the paper.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Flipkart eyeing pole position in Delhi and Bengaluru, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Flipkart is likely to have adopted a targeted strategy to win two major markets NCR and Bengaluru — before taking the battle to other cities, reported Business Standard.

According to the report, the development is likely to affect home-grown online grocers, Bigbasket and Grofers, who are the dominant players in these two regions.

“The message from the top management is that we need to be No. 1 in Bengaluru and Delhi by the year-end,”  a source familiar with the matter told the newspaper.

Flipkart Supermart, the online grocery store Flipkart launched in August 2018, has already hit a monthly sales run-rate of Rs 50 crore, said the report.

Flipkart is already taking steps to expand into other cities. As per the report, it expanded to Hyderabad and Chennai in June last year and will soon open in Mumbai.

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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Swiggy, BigBasket eye milk delivery business, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Swiggy and BigBasket have identified milk supply sector as their investment for the future, reported The Economic Times.

The food-delivery platform and the online grocer are viewing milk delivery startups as a tool to create a presence in the milk supply segment, ET reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, Swiggy, which is looking to expand into the grocery segment is in early talks to acquire subscription-based milk-delivery startup Supr Daily. On the other hand, the report added that the Alibaba backed BigBasket held buyout talks with Pune-based RainCan, Gurgaon-based Milk Basket and Bengaluru-based Daily Ninja.

“Given the kind of capital these companies have raised, they need to invest significantly in capacity-creation and customer acquisition, and subscription-based companies could give them a loyal base of customers … so, wherever Swiggy and BigBasket can leapfrog their growth, they will try and do so through an acquisition,” Vinod Murali of Alteria Capital was quoted as saying in the report.

With an average Indian household spending over a thousand rupees every month on milk, the new venture could help Swiggy and BigBasket in increasing their frequency of orders to 15-20 times a month from 4-5 times a month, the report said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow