This is the largest first round funding for an Indian startup. BigBasket.com, a online grocery store founded by serial entrepreneurs K. Ganesh & Meena Ganesh (of TutorVista) along with Fabmart & Fabmall founders (V S Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh and V S Ramesh) has bagged a cool USD 10 million first round funding according to report in TOI.
With names like those behind the venture, it is not too surprising that VC’s are backing BigBasket.com big-time.
Although, online grocery selling has been much talked about vertical, no single player has been able to make a mark. Most offline grocery superstores like Food Bazaar, Reliance Fresh and Star Bazaar have their online shops, but consumers have not taken fancy to them.
BigBasket.com hopes to bring about a change here – and like others, they have an ambitious plan of setting up ambitious direct-from-farmer supply chain to compete on pricing and make it attractive.
I did go through Bigbasket.com briefly, and as of now, I am not sure if they have the direct-from-farm supply chain in place, as the prices seem to be similar to what you would expect from normal vendors.
Given the track record of people behind Bigbasket.com, this one e-commerce startup will be one to be watched closely!