The online grocery startup Zepto (Formerly known as Kiranakart) has raised $200 million in a Series D funding round from Y Cominator’s Continuity fund.
With this funding round, the startup’s valuation increased from $570 million to $900 million, taking it one step closer to becoming a unicorn.
Existing investorsincludingNexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, Lachy Groom and institutional investors like US-based Kaiser Permanente Ventures also participated in this round.
The startup plans to use the funds to expand its 10-minute delivery service to more cities across the country and grow its network of dark stores.
Mumbai-based Zepto was founded in 2021 by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, It provides grocery delivery in 10 minutes through a network of dark stores and micro warehouses.
“During the last quarter, we posted 800 percent quarter on quarter (QoQ) revenue growth, while burn has come down 5X on a per-order basis. Our team achieved this while continuing to delight our customers – we maintained a phenomenal 88-Point NPS and 60 percent Month-1 Buyer Retention at scale. This unbelievable execution over the past few months has made it clear to investors that Zepto will be one of the winners in Indian Q-Commerce”, said, Aadit Palicha, Zepto’s co-founder and CEO.
The startup said it has now built a team of over 1,000 people in a few months and will continue to work across all functions including engineering, analytics, operations, marketing, finance, and HR. It currently serves 10 cities across the country.
“Our rigorous focus on unit economics is the main reason why we’ve had such an amazing trajectory as a company. We’ve turned micro-markets profitable and brought down burn significantly while growing to a scale of hundreds of thousands of orders per day”, said, Kaivalya Vohra, co-founder, and CTO of Zepto.
Zepto said it is operating a service to deliver coffee, tea and other café items within 10 minutes to select areas of Mumbai. The new range, called ‘Zepto Café’, is being well received by early customers and if the pilot continues well, they plan to expand the service across India soon. In December 2021, Zepto had raised $100 million led by its existing investor Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund.
About Zepto
Zepto is one of the fastest-growing startups in India today. Just 6 months after launching, they have raised $160 million from marquee investors in Silicon Valley and India. Their Founders, AaditPalicha and Kaivalya Vohra, dropped out of Stanford University to build Zepto in India.
Together, they’ve created an incredibly strong team, with Senior Executives from Uber, Flipkart, Dream11, Pepperfry, and Pharmeasy. The magic of Zepto is our ability to consistently deliver 2,500+ products in 10 minutes flat. It’s the core of what they do, and the reason why they’ve been able to grow so fast with Phenomenal customer love. Their mission is simple: to make 10-minute delivery the new normal.
