BigBasket finally ends up getting an investment of $150 million, becoming the newest unicorn
BigBasket, which has made a name for itself in the India market is a startup that delivers groceries all across the country. BigBasket was successfully able to raise $150 million so that it is able to fight companies like Walmart, Amazon, Flipkart, and different hyper local startups.
This round of investment of BigBasket was led by Mirae Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund. This round has ended up helping BigBasket which is a 7-year-old startup to cross the $1 billion valuations.
According to the co-founder and marketing and finances head of BigBasket, Vipul Parekh:
“Chinese giant Alibaba, which also led the Series E investment round last year invested in the company by buying about 30 percent of the stakes and becoming the largest investor of the company.”
BigBasket is known for offering about 20,000 products from about 1,000 brands. BigBasket is now available in more than 24 cities all across India. The capital which has been raised by the company in this investment series will all be invested back in their supply chain network which has added more distribution centers along with cold storage centers so that they are able to serve their customers much faster.
BigBasket will also be investing their money on about 3,000 vending machines that basically offer eatable items such as vegetables and cold drinks in different offices and apartments.
BigBasket was able to raise a total of $300 million last year so that it is able to compete with Amazon and Flipkart who are now expanding their business India at a very steady manner.
Amazon Retail India is responsible for operating for Amazon Prime Now and Amazon Pantry has spread its services over 100 cities. They are planning to expand their business and so it was necessary for BigBasket to expand as well to keep up with the other companies.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the Chief Executing Officer of Flipkart Group said in an interview that they will be trying to get into the fresh food business very soon. It has also been discussed that Flipkart will be acquiring Namdhari’s Fresh grocery chain so that they are able to get into the fresh food business faster.
Vipul Parekh is finally ready to grow their company BigBasket after this round of investment so that they are able to compete with big companies like Amazon and Flipkart. It is very well understood that Flipkart and Amazon are not very serious about their fresh food business and they are more focused on their e-commerce business but soon enough there might shift their focus.
Parekh said:
“The success in this business requires having the ability to build and manage a very complex supply chain across multiple categories such as vegetables, meat, and beauty products amongst others. Our focus has been on building the supply chain, and also ensuring that we are able to deliver a very large assortment of products to consumers.”
BigBasket is rapidly growing in the past few years and it has become financially strong because of that. According to Parekh, BigBasket will soon be profitable. It might take a couple of months before BigBasket is able to earn profits.
Parekh also said:
“The idea is that business by itself does not consume cash. If we use cash, it will be for investment in new business or scaling of existing businesses.”
The retail market in India is now valued at $900 billion and is increasing rapidly over the years. There has been a total of 163 financing rounds, which has a valuation of $1.38 billion. There is a total of 882 players in this market just in India. The only challenge BigBasket will be facing is to grow their company is to compete with its rival Grofers.
Companies like Dunzo a Google-backed startup and Swiggy are also making a lot of noise in the India market.