bigbasket.com looks for pan-India presence

Enters Pune, to establish presence in Chennai & NCR

BS Reporter | Pune December 18, 2014 Last Updated at 20:58 IST

Online grocery retailer bigbasket.com today announced the availability of its services in Pune with the opening of a central warehouse. This is the fourth city after Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai to have this facility. In the coming months, the company expects to establish its presence in Chennai and the National Capital Region.

"With launch in Pune, we have now begun the process of being a national player. From procurement to warehousing to delivery, a fleet of delivery vans and a team of 500-plus people manage everything in-house. Same day delivery has now become a necessity for today's time-strapped customers and we expect most of our customers to use this service consistently. Groceries can also be ordered on smartphones via bigbasket app available for Apple and Android devices,” says Seshu Kumar, national head, merchandising, bigbasket.com.

Currently, it has a customer base of 3.5 lakh with an order growth rate of 30 per cent every month. With a catalog of over 10,000 products, the brand offers products in categories such as fruits, vegetables, rice, spices, meat, beverages and personal care.

It has tied up with local transporters for delivering goods and currently has 12 delivery vans.

The company has targeted sales of $ 1 billion by end of 2018. It sources most of products locally and has tied up with local vendors for grocery products. According to Seshu, fruits and vegetables are the most frequently ordered products. Started in December 2011, bigbasket.com runs its own end-to-end logistics.

From procurement to warehousing to delivery, a fleet of their own delivery vans and a team of 500-plus people manage everything in-house. The company has raised $ 32.8 million in funding. This series B round of funding has come in from Helion Venture Partners and Mumbai based Zodious Capital.

The grocery market in India is worth an annual $10 billion and is growing by 7-8 per cent. BigBasket competes with other online Localbanya.com and MyGrahak.com. bigbasket is co-promoted by serial entrepreneur K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh.

bigbasket opens central warehouse in Hyderabad

In the coming months, the company expects to establish its presence in Pune, Chennai and the National Capital Region

BS Reporter | Hyderabad October 31, 2014 Last Updated at 20:39 IST

Online grocery retailer bigbasket.com announced the start of same day delivery of orders in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad with the opening of a central warehouse.

This is the third city after Bangalore and Mumbai to have this facility. In the coming months, the company expects to establish its presence in Pune, Chennai and the National Capital Region.

“The opening of the warehouse is a significant milestone for our operations in Hyderabad,” bigbasket.com chief executive officer, Hari Menon, stated in a press release here on Friday.

“Same day delivery has now become a necessity for today’s time-strapped customers and we expect most of our customers to use this service consistently,” he added.

According to the company, bigbasket is currently getting more than 5,000 orders per day and is growing at a rate of more than 30 per cent a month on the back of a rapidly-expanding customer base of more than 70,000 in Hyderabad.

With a catalog of over 10,000 products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, grocery and staples, meats, personal care, and home and kitchen products, the company stated that it delivered everything a household may need.

Started in December 2011, bigbasket.com runs its own end-to-end logistics. From procurement to warehousing to delivery, a fleet of their own delivery vans and a team of 500-plus people manage everything in-house.

bigbasket.com raises Rs 200-crore funding

BANGALORE: Online grocer bigbasket has received funding of Rs 200 crore in a round led by venture capital firms Helion and Zodius Fund II with Avendus. Existing investors Ascent Capital and LionRock Capital also participated in the round which saw the valuation of the two-year-old startup cross $100 million (Rs 600 crore).

The Bangalore-based firm, which is also present in Mumbai and Hyderabad, will use the funds to expand to 10 cities by December next year. It plans to expand to Pune and Delhi within six months.

"This is a billion dollar opportunity, you need to have depth of funding to do full justice to the market," said VS Sudhakar, cofounder of bigbasket. "It is very logistics intensive, we control it up to the last mile."

With over 12,000 products and over a 1,000 brands, bigbasket delivers food items such as fruits, vegetables, bakery, dairy products and frozen foods, to customers.

The company, which has crossed annual revenue of Rs 250 crore and is growing 10 per cent each month, relies heavily on technology solutions to track every process from the time an order is placed.

"This money will help us to invest in new technologies to improve customer experience," said Sudhakar. "Using data analytics we would now be able to predict customer shopping habits and requirement." bigbasket.com is a second coming for Sudhakar and five other friends. They had launched online retail website Fabmart in 1999, but could not move the mass market in terms of volumes.

With bigbasket though, the timing is better. By 2016, the Indian grocery market will have overtaken Japan to $566 billion (Rs 34 lakh crore) and become the world's third-largest, according to research firm IGD.

Investors are beginning to regard the segment as one of the promising within the online retail industry. "The largest player in online grocery space is a nice addition to our ecommerce portfolio," said Sanjeev Aggarwal, managing director, Helion Advisors.

"bigbasket is poised to make capital of the early mover advantage and we are happy to back them." Margins in grocery business in India are above 20 per cent compared with countries like the US and the UK, where they run in single-digit numbers. Big-Basket, which has now raised total funding of Rs 278 crore, competes with more than a dozen of online grocery stores, including ZopNow, Aaram-Shop, and Farm2Kitchen.

bigbasket raises $3 million funding

Bangalore-based online grocery retailer bigbasket has raised $3 million from a Singapore-based private investor, reports VCCircle. bigbasket co-founder and CEO Hari Menon told the publication this is part of its next investment round, where it is reportedly looking to raise $40-50 million. Sourced told the publication that the firm has also received some investment from media group Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL).

The company is about to launch its operations in Delhi NCR, Chennai and Pune, and plans to expand to Ahmedabad and Chandigarh later on. Currently its services are available in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

bigbasket claims to offer 10,000 products across several categories like fruits & vegetables, groceries and staple provisions, bread & bakery products, toiletries, branded food & non-food products, dairy products, household provisions, confectioneries and frozen food such as Ice Creams and others. It also has a fleet of vans and claims to deliver products within six hours of an order being placed by the customer.

The company had earlier raised $10 million from Ascent Capital in 2012. The company had announced then that the funds raised will be used to improve its service and merchandise selection, while increasing its capacity.