Peppertap raises $4M more to complete $40M series B round, acquires Jiffstore

Gurgaon-based on demand grocery (and fresh veggie/meat) platform Peppertap has closed additional $4 million funding as a part of its Series B round from Innoven Capital. Earlier, in October this year, the company had snapped up $36 million Series B round led by e-commerce behemoth Snapdeal and others. With this additional round Peppertap also announced acquisition of hyperlocal grocery marketplace -Jiffstore.

At the time of announcing the $36 million funding, Peppertap claimed that it’s close to raise another $20 million from US-based financial investors. However, it appears the deal for said amount didn’t materalise.

The amount and deal structure involved in Jiffstore acquisition was undisclosed but it seems like acqui-hire to spruce up PepperTap's operations in Benagluru. According to YourStory’s sources, Jiffstore was talking to multiple players including Grofers for a possible merger.

“Peppertap aims to use synergies with Jiffstore to build an excellent customer experience,” mentioned a press note released by the company. The Sequoia Capital backed venture had completed a year of operation this week.

At present, PepperTap claims to process over 20,000 orders on a daily basis. The company had introduced ‘live chat' feature in the app to resolve queries instantly. From less than $1 million GMV run rate at the start of the fiscal year 2015-16, the company claims to be on track to end the year with a GMV run-rate of over $250 million.

With this additional round, PepperTap had secured $51.2 million in total investment so far. Earlier, the company had raised $10 million Series A from Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners, and a seed round from Sequoia Capital in 2014.

This year hyperlocal majors Grofers and PepperTap had together amassed close to $200 million risk capital from investors. In one of the biggest deals in 2015 - Grofers gobbled $120 million round led by Softbank last month.

YourStory’s take

Within a year of operation PepperTap has scaled up to a significant level and attracted interest of VCs as well as e-commerce majors like Snapdeal. Research reports suggest that the current market opportunity of hyperlocal space is about $16 billion, much bigger than e-commerce.

However, besides Grofers, PepperTap and Bigbasket, most of grocery and FMCG focused digital platforms are finding extremely difficult to raise next round of capital. Experts say that excess in the space will either die or consolidate.

Localbanya and Townrush had reportedly shut their operation as they failed to raise risk capital. The latter got acqui-hired by Grofers. Paytm owned grocery app Zip also winded up its operation within a month of its launch in Bengaluru.