Bengaluru: Founded by two teenagers, an instant grocery firm Zepto has raised $200 million in a funding round led by Y Combinator, taking its value to around $900 million (Rs 68,953,546,800) within 9 months of starting 10-minute deliveries in India’s rapid growing quick commerce sector. After the commencement of startup capital previously, new investor Kaiser Permanente took part in the round that comes less than 5 months.
As per the announcement made by the company, early investors Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, and Silicon Valley investor Lachy Groom have all hiked their investments, which takes its total funding to $360 million. Zepto, named after the minuscule unit of time, was kicked-off by childhood buddies Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra who dropped out of Stanford University’s computer science program to return to India and become e-commerce entrepreneurs. They are 19 years old.
The Mumbai-headquartered firm’s 10-minute delivery promise has spurred rivals like Google-backed Dunzo, SoftBank Group Corp-backed Blinkit, and Naspers Ltd-backed Swiggy, which are striving for the attention of shoppers in India’s $1 trillion retail markets along with established players Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.-backed Flipkart Online Services Pvt. The CEO of Zepto, Palicha said that the company’s revenue has increased 800% quarter-on-quarter and it has slashed its cash burn by 5 times on a pre-order basis.
The team has stretched to 1,000 people and it has begun making profits in small micro markets or dense city neighborhoods served by a warehouse or dark stores. At present, the company is implementing a service to deliver coffee, tea, and other cafe items within 10 minutes in select areas in Mumbai in its service which is called Zepto Cafe.