And looks like delivering groceries is the new trend these days, as far as investor interest is concerned. Marking another major round for a grocery delivery startup, PepperTap has now raised a whopping $10 Million in Series A from SAIF Partners and Sequoia.
PepperTap’s model isn’t entirely different from other out there, who have raised similarly large rounds recently. Those include ZopNow, which raised $10 Million just a while back and Grofers, which has today announced a $35 Million round led by Tiger global. While Grofers is more of a logisitcs provider for brick and mortar stores than just grocery delivering, it still is one of the most growing verticals for the company.
Grofers growth is specially worth noting, considering that it raised a $10 Million round in February this year, making it one of the fastest consecutive round for an Indian startup.
Like everybody else in the business, PepperTap too is all set to go on an ambitious and aggressive expansion plan, which includes an imminent launch in 10 more Indian cities. PepperTap launched its services in Gurgaon before expanding to Delhi and Noida last month. The new cities it plans to enter include metropolitans like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Mumbai.
PepperTap however works more on an aggregator model, rather than keeping its own inventory. The startup collects catalogs from nearby grocery stores and thus places your order to the one which can delivery the required items in the shortest possible time.
In a prepared statement, SAIF Partners managing director Ravi Adusumalli said
Grocery in India is a huge market and grocery shopping on mobile is already seeing strong adoption. We believe that PepperTap’s hyperlocal marketplace approach is the most efficient way to cater to this market, and can scale up very rapidly.
PepperTap currently claims to have more than 15,000 SKUs and that deliveries are made within two hours.
Another major development in online grocery sector is the entry of Tata Conglomerate’s subsidiary, my247market.com. Though Tata’s service is currently available only in a select few Mumbai areas, it is planning a large scale expansion soon.
