Grofers Raises Rs 400 Crore In A Round Led By SoftBank

Online grocer Grofers raised Rs 400 crore in a fresh round led by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp at a lower valuation, signalling increasing competition with rivals like BigBasket, Flipkart Ltd. and Amazon.com Inc.

Other investors including Tiger Global Management and Apoletto Asia also participated in the funding, Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder of the Gurugram-based startup, told BloombergQuint over the phone. The deal takes total funds raised by Grofers to $226.5 million.

The fresh investment by Masayoshi Son-led Softbank into Grofers comes less than two months after its rival BigBasket raised $300 million in a round led by Alibaba Group Holding. The two companies also face stiff competition as Flipkart and Amazon expand their grocery businesses aggressively. Online grocery retail is expected to grow at an annualised rate of 65-70 percent in three years to March 2020, according to a Crisil report. The industry is likely to quadruple in size Rs 10,000 crore during the period.

Five-year-old Grofers clocks an average of 25,000 orders a day at Rs 1,400 each. It will use fresh funds to invest in building private labels. “A significant amount of investment will also go towards building infrastructure and technology and efficient supply chain management to achieve deeper penetration in existing cities,” Dhindsa said.

The fresh infusion nearly after two years came at a lower valuation. Dhindsa said the company is now valued at $300 million, compared with $350 million when it last raised capital in 2015. Big Basket was valued at $950 million when it raised funds from Alibaba and others last month.

Also Read: Walmart Shows Online Groceries Are Having Their Moment

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