Some heavy artillery for food delivery startups. Online grocery platform BigBasket, has raised $50 million in a latest funding round from its existing investors – Bessemer Venture Partners. The start-up has mandated Citigroup to raise $150 million from a set of new investors, people familiar with the matter told Economic Times.
The new funding round is raised at a valuation of $400 million. The money raised in this round will be used to expand company’s operations into 50 more cities. Do note though, that this $50 Million is a part of a larger funding round, which when complete, would take BigBasket into the $1 Billion Market Valuation club.
Founded in 2011 by Hari Menon, VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Choudhari, BigBasket.com is India’s largest online food and grocery store. The company has more than 14,000 products and over a 1,000 brands in their catalogue.
You will find everything you are looking for from fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Rice and Dals, Spices and Seasonings to Packaged products, Beverages, Personal care products, Meats, etc. BigBasket is currently operating in six Indian cities – Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, and Mysore.
The company has raised about $85.8 million in three funding rounds from five investors as of now. It counts Zodius Capital, ICICI Venture, Helion Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Ascent Capital Group among its investors.
Hari Menon, CEO, BigBasket.com, said,
BigBasket would exit the current financial year with a revenue run rate of $400 million, a four-fold jump from the $100 million in August. Our revenue run rate projection for the next financial year, FY17, is $1 billion.
The Indian online grocery market is on a rise this year. Many big players like Amazon, Flipkart, etc. have either already entered (via pilot phase) or are in the process of entering into the market. On the other hand though, a lot of startups have adopted a similar grocery delivery model, and have in fact raised substantial funding.
As per a report from Goldman Sachs, India’s e-commerce market is estimated to grow 15 times to $300 billion by the year 2030. BigBasket competes with Hyperlocal delivery service Grofers, which raised $36 million in Series B round and ZopNow which raised $10 million to expand its operations to other cities.
Recently, Ola also started its grocery delivery service with the launch of its new app named Ola Store. Other players in this space include Tata Group’s My247Market, Pickingo, 24x7Fresh, and PepperTap, which raised $10 million in Series A round.
