Kiranakart Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs Zepto, a 10-minute grocery delivery app, said it has raised $60 million (around Rs 444 crore) in an early-stage round led by Glade Brook Capital at a $225 million (Rs 1,665 crore) valuation.
The round also saw participation from Nexus, Y Combinator, and individual investors including the former head of US-based fintech company Stripe Lachy Groom; Neeraj Arora, ex-chief business officer of WhatsApp; and Microsoft executive Manik Gupta.
Founded by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, the 19-year-old founders dropped out of their computer science degrees at Stanford University to build Zepto. The firm operated in stealth mode for 6 months before going live in select metro cities.
Zepto said it is expanding across Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi-NCR and will be launching in areas across Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata in the next 30 days.
The company works with its network of ‘cloud stores’ or micro-warehouses to deliver groceries in under 10 minutes.
“Simply put, customers love a rapid delivery experience. The data speaks for itself – once we started delivering in 10 minutes, our NPS shot up and has constantly remained at around 85 with a 50%+ Week-on-Week user retention rate, which shows the incredibly strong customer love for our product,” tech chief Vohra said.
“We’re consistently growing 200% every single month with an unstoppable team, robust product infrastructure, and deep access to institutional capital,” said CEO Palicha.
The company has its tech office in Bengaluru and operations headquarters in Mumbai.
Competition in the hyperlocal space has been heating up as the pandemic has brought in a lot more customers to online commerce.
Foodtech unicorns Zomato and Swiggy have entered this space with 10 minute delivery in select cities. On August 17, Zomato-backed Grofers announced 10-minute deliveries in 10 Indian cities; Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, Noida, and Lucknow.
Hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo has also launched its under 19-minute delivery in Bengaluru. Swiggy’s Instamart continues to create ‘dark (online orders only) stores’ with partners in areas of operations to execute more control over their grocery inventory, as it begins 15- to 30-minute deliveries on the platform.
In July last year, Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart launched a hyperlocal delivery app Flipkart Quick in Bengaluru.
