Update: June 7, 2019| 3: 00 PM
In an email statement, Milkbasket said that Milkbasket and BACQ have mutually decided not to proceed with the investment.
Gurugram-headquartered hyperlocal delivery startup Milkbasket has raised $2.86 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in a debt funding round. Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal has invested in this round through his tech fund, BAC Acquisitions.
These funds will help this milk and grocery delivery startup to reach the required capital expenditure and expand its research and development across domains.
Founded in 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia, Milkbasket began its journey as a milk-delivery startup. Over the last four years, the company has expanded to fulfill the daily grocery needs of a household with deliveries starting at 7:00 a.m.
Prior to this round, Milkbasket has raised nearly $16 Mn from Mayfield Advisors, Beenext, Kalaari Capital, Unilever Ventures, Lenovo and Blume Ventures.
Milkbasket: Key Milestones
Milkbasket leverages machine learning to enable frequent and friction-less buying experience for its users. The Gurugram-based startup also enables its users to top-up their online wallet with a pre-decided amount. This top-up can then be used to place an order anytime before 12 a.m in order to get the delivery by tomorrow morning. Based on individual preferences, a user can place flexible orders. Additionally, the startup also offers another feature to help users manage their daily grocery expenses.
The company claims to have achieved positive unit economics within the first six months of its launch. At present, it is operating in Delhi (only Dwarka area), Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Bengaluru.
Last month, Milkbasket has acquired Noida-based grocery delivery startup Veggie India for an undisclosed amount. All Veggie India employees along with the cofounders Jainendra Upadhyay and Shailendra Upadhyay have joined Milkbasket as part of this deal.
Anant Goel, cofounder and CEO of Milkbasket had then said that the acquisition is in line with our growth plans for 2019 and will add further strength and distribution capabilities to its existing business.
BAC Acquisitions And Its Portfolio Plans
In December 2018, Bansal along with his friend Ankit Agarwal registered BAC Acquisitions Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru with the vision of developing platforms which can optimise business automation and enable digitisation of processes across sectors.
The company had increased its authorised share capital to INR 7.5K Cr ($1.05 Bn) in January 2019, soon after which Bansal had invested another $7 Mn (INR 50 Cr) in BAC Acquisitions.
Bansal has invested across sectors, some of his notable investments include:
- Altico Capital India- $35.16 Mn (INR 250 Cr)
- IndoStar Capital Finance – $35.16 Mn (INR 250 Cr)
- Vogo- $3 Mn (INR 20.8 Cr)
- Bounce- $3 Mn (INR 20.8 Cr)
Earlier, there have been reports that Bansal is in talks with financial experts on the potential to launch a new venture in the fintech sector. He has also reportedly met Reserve Bank of India executives to figure out its eligibility to start a bank.
Another media report had said that Sachin Bansal is looking to acquire a 75% stake in Bengaluru-based Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services which runs a microfinance institution, Chaitanya India Fin Credit (CIFCPL) in a deal worth INR 200 Cr.
Hyperlocal Grocery Delivery In India
A Goldman Sachs report forecasted that the Indian online grocery market is set to reach $40 Mn (INR 270 Cr) by FY19, growing at a CAGR of 62% from 2016 to 2022.
Even though, this hyperlocal delivery sector has attracted prolific investors such as SoftBank, Tencent, and Temasek; many players have been struggling with growth and high rates of cash burn. Here are a few highlights from the sector:
- Flipkart Supermart, Walmart-Flipkart’s online grocery arm, is currently operational in all major pincodes of Bengaluru with plans to expand to five to six major cities by the end of 2018
- Amazon Pantry, Amazon Prime Now, and the Google-backed Dunzo are some of the other big players making their way into the online grocery segment in India
- Bengaluru-based Daily Ninja raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Matrix Partners India in September 2018
- BigBasket is close to completing its $150 Mn funding round with sizeable investments from Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments and the UK government-backed CDC Group.
- Gurugram-based online grocery startup Grofers had raised nearly $60 Mn in a Series F funding round from SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF) in March 2019. This is reportedly the first tranche of the larger $120 Mn-$140 Mn funding round that is under works for Grofers.
As one of the nascent players in the industry, Milkbasket has big shoes to fill after Sachin Bansal’s investment.