{"id":1272820,"date":"2023-08-26T08:25:19","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T02:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/?p=1272820"},"modified":"2023-08-26T08:25:54","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T02:55:54","slug":"indian-startup-by-20-year-old-founders-become-1st-unicorn-of-2023-heres-the-story-of-zepto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/indian-startup-by-20-year-old-founders-become-1st-unicorn-of-2023-heres-the-story-of-zepto\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Startup By 20-Year-Old Founders Become 1st Unicorn Of 2023: Here&#8217;s The Story Of Zepto!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Quick-commerce startup Zepto is now a quick-commerce unicorn, the first one in India this year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, the first to turn a unicorn after an 11-month unicorn drought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Untitled-design-49-1280x720-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Indian Startup By 20-Year-Old Founders Become 1st Unicorn Of 2023: Here's The Story Of Zepto!\" class=\"wp-image-1272823\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Untitled-design-49-1280x720-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Untitled-design-49-1280x720-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Untitled-design-49-1280x720-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Untitled-design-49-1280x720-1.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The funding round was led by the StepStone Group, a US asset management firm and included Goodwater Capital and some existing investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This round is significant for making Zepto the first unicorn, or startup valued at over $1 billion, to be minted in India this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ending unicorn drought<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zepto is the first unicorn, or startup valued at over $1 billion, to be minted in India this year since last September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last startup in India to turn unicorn was Molbio Diagnostics in September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before that, at the peak of the funding boom in 2021, the country added a unicorn almost every week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>44 startups entered the unicorn club in 2021 and 23 more last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However after this, funding started to recede and investors have been more selective of the startups they\u2019re backing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Investor profile<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the $200 million that was raised, $105 million came from the StepStone Group ($75 million) and Goodwater Capital ($30 million) who are both new investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For StepStone this is its first direct investment in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Goodwater Capital has invested in audio-streaming startup Pocket FM and edtech companies Teachmint and Yellowclass before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The remaining $95 million came from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital and Lachy Groom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Only foreign interest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Barring Nexus, co-founder Aadit Palicha shared that the company hasn\u2019t actively raised money from India-centric VCs, but that may happen in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe investors we got onboard are high-quality, detail-oriented ones who have seen multiple cycles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most investors have not seen a through and through cycle like this in India when it comes to technology investing and as a result they are a lot more conservative,\u201d Palicha said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey are a lot less willing to invest in a bear market versus some larger institutional investors, like StepStone, which have been investing for decades.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;ve got the capability to take high-quality contrarian bets in this (bear) market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBoth StepStone and Goodwater Capital have invested in operationally intensive retail businesses before\u2026 we didn&#8217;t find people that specialise in this category in India.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That being said, we are very excited to go deeper with India-centric investors. Going forward, Zepto is going to see a lot more India-centric investors,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zepto counts Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Reliance-funded Dunzo and Tata\u2019s BigBasket (BB Now) as rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s an ongoing competition between Blinkit and Instamart as the top two players, while Zepto was the third-largest in terms of order volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Financials<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The startup revealed that its monthly cash burn had reduced to Rs 55 crore in April from Rs 90 crore in September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without sharing specifics, Palicha said the cash burn was on a downward trajectory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zepto aims to turn EBITDA-positive in 12 months, with its EBITDA margin narrowing to a negative 15-16 percent in April from a negative 278.6 percent in January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moneycontrol.com\/news\/business\/zepto-is-first-indian-unicorn-of-2023-raises-200-million-at-1-4-billion-valuation-11256271.html\/amp?utm_campaign=fullarticle&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=inshorts\">eyeing <\/a>an initial public offering during the first half of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Road to IPO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite having raised money, Palicha said most of the capital from the previous round, also $200 million, is still in savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn 12 months, when we get to EBITDA-positive, we will not need to spend a significant amount of this money. After EBITDA-positive, we\u2019ll do a pre-IPO round. This was our last growth equity round and was done just to build our balance sheet,\u201d Palicha said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick-commerce startup Zepto is now a quick-commerce unicorn, the first one in India this year.&nbsp; It has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, the first to turn a unicorn after an 11-month unicorn drought. The funding round was led by the StepStone Group, a US asset management firm and included Goodwater Capital [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1272823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[3266],"class_list":["post-1272820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-zepto"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Indian Startup By 20-Year-Old Founders Become 1st Unicorn Of 2023: Here&#039;s The Story Of Zepto! - Trak.in - Indian Business of Tech, Mobile &amp; Startups<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trak.in\/stories\/indian-startup-by-20-year-old-founders-become-1st-unicorn-of-2023-heres-the-story-of-zepto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indian Startup By 20-Year-Old Founders Become 1st Unicorn Of 2023: Here&#039;s The Story Of Zepto! - Trak.in - Indian Business of Tech, Mobile &amp; Startups\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Quick-commerce startup Zepto is now a quick-commerce unicorn, the first one in India this year.&nbsp; It has raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, the first to turn a unicorn after an 11-month unicorn drought. 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