Bengaluru-based grocery startup, BigBasket has entered into the unicorn territory with the recent $150 million Series F funding round and became the only grocer to achieve the distinction.
The round saw shares at $114.28571 per share funded by Chinese e-commerce Alibaba, South Korea Mirae Asset Global Investments, and the UK government-powered CDC Group.
BigBasket has reached a total of $1.02 billion fundings across 14 funding rounds from investors like Alibaba, LionROck Capital, Abraaj Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, and a few others.
With the latest funds, the company is seeking growth by expanding into the existing markets with more investments and scaling up its supply chain, and for developing new reseller channels.
“SGSPL (BigBasket) offers a transformational and convenient experience to its consumers, which makes it a preferred grocery platform. As India moves towards organized retail that offers standardized quality, comfort and speed in the shopping experience, we firmly believe the big basket brand will continue to define this segment as a category leader”, said Ashish Dave, head of India Investments for Mirae Asset Global Investments.
BigBasket’s journey from a grocer startup to a unicorn
Bengaluru-based BigBasket was founded by VS Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh, and Abhinay Choudhari on Oct 1, 2011.
The company have over 10 million registered customers and claims to have 1 lakh orders per day. It is one of the largest online food and grocery store with over 18000 products and over 1000 brands in the catalog, having its presence in 25 cities in India.
The online grocery startup aims to touch $1 billion gross sales run rate by the end of FY19. Its monthly gross sales are close to $33 million with an annual exit rate of approximately $435.8 million.
BigBasket is also striving to create in-house brands like Fresho for vegetables and idli/dosa batter; Staples- Royal and Popular; Tasties for snacks.