Grofers, an India-based startup that delivers grocery staples, has raised $60 million from SoftBank Vision Fund, upping its valuation to $425 million, according to the Economic Times.
The Series F is reportedly “the first tranche of a larger $120-$140 million funding round that the company is stitching together,” according to the Times.
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Grofers has raised just over $300 million since its inception in 2013, according to its Crunchbase profile. Its last raise was a $56.4 million Series E that gave the company a pre-money valuation of $238 million. Grofers also has backing from other big players like Tiger Global (read more about this secretive yet prolific firm here) and Sequoia Capital India.
Grofers appears to be in growth mode, with about 3 million app downloads in its lifetime, according to its website. Its site also claims other (somewhat vague) stats: More than 1,000 people “have joined the Grofers team” in the past six months. (Whether they have joined as employees or contractors is unclear – we’ve reached out to Grofers and will update the story if they get back to us.) The company also says it has grown its user base by four times on a monthly basis, but doesn’t specify over what timeframe.
The fresh funding comes at a time when India’s food delivery space is heating up. Swiggy, an India-based company that delivers food from restaurants, raised $1 billion in December in a round led by South Africa-based Naspers. Uber, which started delivering food in India in 2017, may even bow out of the competition and sell its service to Swiggy, according to Bloomberg.
Right now, Grofers operates in about 23 cities, according to its website. To compare other contenders in the food delivery sector: UberEats says it operates in more than 37 Indian cities; Swiggy is in 80 cities.
Globally, the delivery category is huge (although it’s important to note a recent failure in the space with venture-backed prepared meal delivery service provider Munchery abruptly shuttering last month.) Last October, our EIC Alex Wilhelm reported on San Francisco-based Instacart raising $600 million in a round that took its valuation to $7.6 billion (the company ended up adding another $271 million to that round in November). Postmates, coming off of $100 million capital infusion in January from multiple investors, filed for an IPO in February.
While the funding infusion is noteworthy, the space does present its own challenges. Time will tell if Grofers’ strategy can pass the taste test. So far, investors are betting they will.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
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