BigBasket buys Delyver, intensifies competition in the hyperlocal delivery space
Founded in December 2011, BigBasket is an online grocery store started by e-commerce veterans Hari Menon, VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Choudhari. The company has announced the acquisition of Delyver, a Bangalore based hyperlocal delivery startup in a cash and stock deal. Delyver will still continue to operate as a separate entity till the two teams chalk out the details. For now, Delyver will start delivering groceries and BigBasket will have Delyver's on-the-ground fleet for deliveries.
Delyver was started in late 2010 by three IIM Lucknow alumnus- Afsal Salu, Reebu Varghese and Praful Thachery. The company had raised a round of INR 6.5 crores late last year. K Ganesh has been one of the key investors in Delyver and also in BigBasket. Delyver is currently operational in Bangalore and does about 50,000 orders every month. The team at Delyver has been in constant touch with BigBasket and the time felt right for the acquisition to come through.
For BigBasket, activity has been in the air. The fast growing online grocery store has raised more than $60 million and was valued at over $200 million. Already present in 50 cities, getting on the 60-90 minute delivery promise only makes its portfolio complete. BigBasket is operational in 8 cities and plans to reach 50 cities by end of the year. The numbers are very promising. In this Business Standard interview, BigBasket claims to be delivering 11,000 deliveries a day in NCR alone and that too, only after three weeks of launching in the region.
Grofers and PepperTap are the biggest upcoming competitors for BigBasket. Both from NCR, Grofers has raised more than $45 million and PepperTap has raised more than $10 million. Grofers is expanding quickly and after three cities, has been launching one city a day in the last week. The service is active in 9 cities at the moment. Mumbai based LocalBanya is another player in the area.
For BigBasket, the race is on. The company has also pressed the button on private labels to increase profitability and has recently tied up with more than 1800 grocery stores. And this acquisition will come in handy to fulfill on the quick service promise. "Everyone has their eyes on the 90 minute promise with groceries and with this alignment, BigBasket will be able to compete on this front as well," said Praful. With revenues of over $30 million, BigBasket co-founder Hari Menon said that the company is likely to turn profitable after two years.
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