Kiranakart Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs Zepto, a 10-minute grocery delivery app, has raised $100 million (around Rs 758 crore) in a Series C funding round led by American technology startup accelerator Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund. This has valued the firm at $570 million (around Rs 4,275 crore), the company said.
The round also saw participation from Glade Brook, Nexus, Breyer Capital, Lachy Groom, Global Founders Capital, and Contrary Capital, Zepto's CEO and founder Aadit Palicha told VCCircle.
The Series C round comes 45 days after the company announced its $60 million fundraise in November.
With this fresh capital, Zepto plans to expand across multiple cities in India and scale its team rapidly and is currently hiring across all functions, including operations, supply chain, marketing, finance, product, engineering, and human resources, Palicha said.
Besides the fundraise, he added that at a business level, Zepto has been growing at over 220% over the past two months. Zepto has expanded beyond Mumbai by launching its operations in Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune - with Kolkata soon to follow.
Zepto has set up offices in all major Indian cities, with its corporate headquarters in Mumbai and engineering/product office in Bengaluru. Its leadership team includes senior executives and operators from Flipkart, Uber, Dream11, Pharmeasy, PepperFry and Amazon.
Zepto was founded by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, the 18-year-old dropouts of computer science degree course at Stanford University. The firm operated in stealth mode for six months before going live in select metro cities.
The company operates with its network of ‘cloud stores’ or micro-warehouses to deliver groceries in under 10 minutes.
As the pandemic has brought in a lot more customers to online commerce, competition in the hyperlocal area has been heating up.
Foodtech unicorns Zomato and Swiggy have also 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.
In an interview with VCCircle, Blinkit formerly known as Grofers’ founder and chief executive, Albinder Dhindsa said they are going to expand to at least 100 cities with the 10-minute delivery model by March 2022.
Hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo, Swiggy’s Instamart and Walmart-owned e-commerce major Flipkart have also ventured into the hyperlocal delivery services space recently.
