Big Basket raises $60mn to meet demand surge amid lockdown
What's the story
Big Basket, one of India's biggest hyperlocal grocery start-ups, has raised $60 million as part of a bridge-round of funding from Alibaba and others. The investment comes at a crucial time for the company as it races to scale up operations and meet the unprecedented surge in the demand for home delivery of groceries, due to the COVID-19 crisis. Here's all about it.
Details
Funding from existing investors, finalized two weeks ago
As learned by Entrackr and later confirmed by TechCrunch, Alibaba and other existing investors, including Mirae Asset and CDC Group, have invested $60 million into BB as part of the bridge round. The investment was materialized a couple of weeks ago to help the company meet the demand for groceries, which has been surging in light of the lockdown enforced to prevent COVID-19 transmission.
Problems
Order volume has surged by up to 5 times
In conversation with TechCrunch, Big Basket co-founder Vipul Parekh revealed that the company has witnessed up to 5 times surge in order volumes in recent weeks. To match this demand, they need to make deliveries, but there have been problems around that, owing to the interruption of authorities enforcing the lockdown and instances of delivery agents refuting the work due to the viral outbreak.
Effort
Fresh funding to aid scaling operations
Evidently, the fresh round of funding will now be utilized by the company to scale up its operations, meet the growing demand, and the concerns associated with delivery personnel. Parekh stated that the start-up is aggressively trying to hire more delivery agents to clear its backlog of orders and deliver fresh ones as quickly as possible.
Valuation
Big Basket is now valued at over $1.2 billion
Big Basket attained the status of a unicorn back in 2019 and is said to be valued at over $1.2 billion, with almost $720 million raised in venture capital. The company's "valuation has remained flat in this round," a company source told Entrackr, adding that the funding "will help them extend the runway by six months as the company's monthly burn is $8-10 million."