"We are open to acquire companies": Navneet Singh, CEO, PepperTap

This year’s hottest sector is without a doubt ‘hyperlocal services’ and PepperTap has emerged as one of the top companies.It was Co-founder Navneet Singh’s personal experience that led him to launch PepperTap along with Milind Sharma. “I used to work six days and spend a major chunk of my Sundays purchasing grocery. This prompted me to start PepperTap,” Navneet said during a panel discussion on local commerce during MobileSparks 2015.

Launched in November 2014, PepperTap allows customers to buy groceries on demand through an app. The company started out by providing services in Gurgaon. PepperTap today operates in Delhi-NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Chennai.

There is a lot of buzz around hyperlocal this year with investors pumping in around $250 million this year, mostly in companies that are less than two-years-old. PepperTap too raised funding of $10 million earlier this year from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital.

The sector has also evolved rapidly in a short period. Startups have come up in various segments within hyperlocal ranging from grocery and food delivery and handyman services to on-demand logistics. Industry insiders say customer behaviour is trending towards on-demand. Increasingly, consumers are also becoming mobile-first and the hyperlocal startups are best placed to take advantage of this shift. With technology advancements in mobile-tech and location, these young companies are able to provide quick service to a growing customer base.

It is no wonder then that PepperTap’s Navneet believes that the challenge does not lie on the demand side, but on the supply side. The main focus for PepperTap is to find the right partners across multiple localities and cities. For PepperTap and other hyperlocal companies getting the model right in one location and then scaling up to other geographies also acts as an advantage.

In this video interview, Navneet talks about expansion, challenges and possible acquisitions.