Grofers Raises Rs. 800Cr In Fresh Funding Led By SoftBank; Ties Up With Coca Cola For Exclusive Launch

Grofers, the hyperlocal delivery start-up founded in December, 2013, has raised a fresh funding of Rs 800 crore ($120 million). This new infusion of venture capital is being led by SoftBank and Russian entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner. As per sources, their existing investors: Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital have also chipped in this round of funding.

As a result of this new round of funding, Grofers has increased their valuation to more than $300 million; which raises the question: Has it overtaken Big Basket now?

This is Grofers’ 4th round of funding. Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital invested Rs 66 crore ($10 million) in February this year, followed by Rs 218 crore ($33 million) in April. Their first round of funding came in December last year, when Sequoia and Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal invested an undisclosed amount in Grofers.

SoftBank is likely to take 20-30% stake in the startup, after this recent round of funding. Till now, Grofers has received Rs 10,500 crore ($160 million) in VC funding.

Overall, in less than a year, Grofers has increased their value by 10 times, which proves that the hyperlocal groceries niche is booming and well on its course to become one of the largest in India.

Grofers CEO and co-founder Albinder Dhindsa said after this successful funding round: “Very honestly it’s just a distraction for the team. We’re in the middle of trying to build a business.”

Controversies Surrounding Grofers

In September this year, we had reported that Grofers has shifted their base to Singapore, as they created a new entity: Grofers International. Considering low tax structure in Singapore, and better infrastructure and corporate laws, we had questioned this move at a time when PM Modi propagating Make in India and Digital India mission.

Besides Grofers, India’s biggest ecommerce portal Flipkart along with other startups such as Knowlarity, Freshdesk, Druva, AdNear and Mobicon have already shifted to Singapore.

Another controversy gripped Grofers when group buying startup Groffr (promoted by Redstone Consultancy) dragged Grofers to court over usage of similar sounding names.

Groffr was founded in 2010, while Grofers started their operations in 2013.

The court said, “The dispute in the present case is with respect to the trademark/service mark/word mark ‘GROFFR’ of the plaintiff and ‘GROFERS’ of the defendants.”

The next hearing is scheduled for February, 2016.

Grofers Gaining Popularity

As of now, Grofers is being used by 1.6 million users across 26 Indian cities. Powered by 10,000 merchants and 250 vendors for shipping, they are delivering 30,000 orders per month. In Delhi-NCR and Mumbai alone, they are receiving 700 orders per day.

There are 1,20,000 products available on Grofers as of now.

Additionally, big brands are slowly warming up to the idea of online groceries and hyperlocal concept. For the first time ever, Coca Cola has decided to tied-up with an ecommerce startup to launch their product. Recently, Coca Cola made an exclusive deal with Grofers to launch their new drink: Sprit Zero, which would be only available on Grofers for a fortnight.

In terms of valuation, Grofers is now neck and neck with Big Basket; and if numbers are churned out, they may well become India’s largest hyperlocal ecommerce app very soon.