Bigbasket, India’s leading online grocery delivery firm, has just joined the big boys club and is now among the handful of start-ups in India to be termed as a Unicorn (start-up with a valuation in excess of 1 Billion $).
After sealing a series F round of funding worth $ 150 million (roughly ₹ 1,050 crore), the Bengaluru headquartered company has an estimated post-money valuation of $ 2.28 Billion, which is in excess of a two-fold jump, when compared with its last reported valuation of $ 950 million.
This latest round of funding was led by new and existing investors; with Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant pumping in $ 50 million. In addition, Mirae Asset Management put in $ 60 million and CDC, a finance group linked to the UK government, put in the remaining $ 40 million.
Alibaba had led a $ 300 million funding round in Bigbasket in early 2018 as well, and with this round, the online grocer has raised a total of $ 1 billion in funding over 14 rounds.
The fresh capital is expected to provide Bigbasket the firepower to go deeper into the online grocery segment, where competition seems to be intensifying from the likes of Grofers, Flipkart Supermart and Amazon Pantry, all of which have lined up large investments to scale their grocery business.
Bigbasket was started in 2011 by Hari Menon and four others, and now operates in 32 cities across the country with annual revenue of ₹ 350 – 400 crore.
Just earlier this week, Delhivery, a Guruguam based e-commerce logistics start-up, saw its valuation topping $ 2 billion after Softbank Vision Fund, the world’s largest technology fund, led a round of funding to the tune of $ 413 million in Delhivery.
This marks quite an achievement for India’s start-up ecosystem, as two of the country’s promising start-ups have entered the coveted Unicorn club in a matter of one week.
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