Leading Digital Lending Platform LoanTap Partners with BigBasket’s HoReCa to Launch Financing Solutions

Collaboration to provide hassle-free credit options for businesses in the HoReCa industry

LoanTap, a leading digital lending platform, has announced a strategic partnership with Big Basket to introduce financing solutions for buyers from the BigBasket’s HoReCa segment. This collaboration aims to offer a unique and hassle-free experience to businesses in the HoReCa industry, enabling them to access credit quickly and conveniently. 

HoReCa is an acronym for Hotels, Restaurants and Cafes. 

Under this partnership, LoanTap will provide financing options to the customers of Big Basket in the HoReCa segment, with the general credit limit ranging from Rs 25,000 to 10 Lakhs. Customers will have a credit period of 30 days. By using a credit line as a payment method, customers will access 0% interest. This will encourage more customers to use the credit line as a payment method, increasing the number of transactions and thus, increasing market penetration of Big Basket's HoReCa segment.

The partnership between LoanTap and Big Basket's HoReCa segment will offer several benefits to both companies and their customers. LoanTap will be able to cater to small businesses through this arrangement and acquire new customers in the HoReCa market. This will provide LoanTap with an opportunity to create more personalized products to cater to the specific needs of businesses. On the other hand, Big Basket will be able to increase and retain its customer base by offering convenient financing options to its customers.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr Satyam Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder of LoanTap, said, "We are excited to partner with Big Basket's HoReCa segment to launch financing solutions for their customers. This partnership will enable us to reach out to more businesses and create more personalized products to cater to their needs. We are confident that our partnership with Big Basket's will bring benefits to both companies and their customers."

Mr Ashwath Ram, heading BigBasket’s HoReCa Division says, “The HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant, and Catering) market in India is growing rapidly and has a lot of potential for organized suppliers. Additionally, the pandemic has resulted in an increase in home delivery services, which has further boosted the demand for food suppliers."

Bigbasket’s HoReCa market is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years with the increasing demand for quality food products and services. The food service market is expected to witness significant growth due to factors such as changing consumer behaviour, increasing disposable income, and the growth of tourism.

By partnering with LoanTap, Bigbasket’s HoReCa business customers benefit from having access to credit-based payment with 0% interest. This boosts our potential to tap into a small ticket market and expand the customer base. Additionally, this will help foray into the Cloud kitchen, QSRs, Restaurants and Bakery segments.”

The partnership will open up opportunities for both companies to explore new markets and expand their customer base. The companies will continue to work together to develop innovative solutions that meet the needs of businesses in the HoReCa industry. This partnership marks a significant milestone for both LoanTap and Big Basket's HoReCa segment, as they continue to strengthen their positions in the industry. 

About LoanTap –

LoanTap is one of the fastest-growing & trusted FinTech companies in the category with its in-house RBI-registered NBFC led by experienced leadership and a highly skilled team. LoanTap focuses on customer delight by helping them choose the best loan products from a portfolio of multiple products like personal loans, business loans, home loans, gold loans, loans against mutual funds plus many use case loans.

LoanTap has had a successful year expanding its distribution and Afterpay network in various sectors. Looking towards the future, LoanTap’s goal is to make credit more accessible to over 4 lakh merchants through their Afterpay network this year. LoanTap plan to achieve this goal by utilizing LTFLoW, their innovative Lendtech platform. LTFLoW allows to establish a roadmap towards profitable growth while creating a resilient digital lending ecosystem. With its anchor-led distribution stack, marketplace for capital coverage, and in-house NBFC, users of LTFLoW can continue to create innovative products and expand their reach.

BigBasket Acquires Kerala Startup Agrima Infotech

(From left) Founders of Agrima Infotech Anoop Balakrishnan, Arun Ravi and Nikhil Dharman

Deal announced on sidelines of KSUM’s Huddle Global 2022

India’s largest online grocery seller BigBasket has acquired the enterprise business unit of a deep-tech company incubated by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) with a view to revolutionizing offline retail in the country.

BigBasket, a TATA enterprise, will be implementing Kochi-based startup Agrima Infotech’s unique customer vision technology platform, Psyight, at the self-checkout counters of the former’s retail stores.

The acquisition was announced by Mr Hari Menon, CEO, BigBasket, on the sidelines of a two-day virtual ‘Huddle Global 2022’ of KSUM that got underway here on Saturday.

Psyight, created by Mr Anoop Balakrishnan, Mr Arun Ravi and Mr Nikhil Dharman under Agrima Infotech, helps identify all Indian fruits and vegetables uniquely from an image without using barcodes.

KSUM Chief Executive Officer Mr John M Thomas described the acquisition as a “milestone” for any Kerala startup. “It not only reiterates the strength of our startup ecosystem, but shows the great impression firms such as BigBasket have about our startups,” he noted. “I hope the deal would encourage startups to move ahead strongly in their attempt to scale up their business.”

Agrima Infotech Co-founder and CEO Mr Anoop Balakrishnan said his startup joining hands with BigBasket will redefine the offline shopping experience in the country.

Agrima Co-Founder and COO Mr Arun Ravi said detecting raw food items such fruits and vegetables uniquely from an image is a complex machine vision problem since the appearance of those items may vary with respect to the location of its origin and seasons. “We have captured thousands of images of each SKU (stock-keeping unit) across the seasons and from different locations to achieve cent per cent accuracy,” he added.

Mr Menon, noting that the acquisition brings “a lot of value to our business”, said BigBasket will use this expertise on AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) to enrich and enhance a whole lot of technological innovation in the company. “We look forward to working with Agrima team to build solid innovation in the grocery space.”

Recently, BigBasket opened its first technology-driven self-service ‘Fresho’ retail store in Bangalore.

KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala Government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.

Tata Acquires Majority Stake in Bigbasket

Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in online grocery seller BigBasket through its subsidiary Tata Digital. The stake in BigBasket pits Tata against other rival bigwigs such as Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart and SoftBank-backed Grofers.

While Tata Digital did not disclose the details, regulatory filings show that it has acquired 64 per cent stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies, the online grocer's business-to-business entity.

"Grocery is one of the largest components of an individual's consumption basket in India, and Bigbasket as India's largest e-grocery player, fits in perfectly with our vision of creating a large consumer digital ecosystem. We are delighted to welcome Bigbasket as a part of Tata Digital," said Pratik Pal, CEO of Tata Digital.

Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket, said --

the company was "extremely excited" about its future as part of Tata Group. As a part of the Tata ecosystem, we would be able to build a stronger consumer-connect and accelerate our journey.

E-grocery has been a rapidly growing space, but with the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdowns, things have picked up. This deal comes at a time when there's been a significant shift to online shopping, especially for essentials like food and groceries.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had approved Tata Digital's offer of acquiring 64.3 per cent stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private in April.

The Bengaluru-based online grocery platform was founded in 2011 and has its presence in 25 cities.

Original Source - BusinessToday.in

MoEngage Partners with Bigbasket to Drive-up Metrics for its App Biz

MoEngage will utilize its intelligent customer engagement platform to scale personalized messaging and deliver value rapidly to bigbasket’s customers 

MoEngage, the intelligent customer engagement platform recently announced its partnership with bigbasket, India's largest online supermarket. The partnership will help enhance customer retention and loyalty for bigbasket through MoEngage’s omni- channel communication platform. 

MoEngage will further bigbasket’s focus on retention and help deliver hyper-personalized offers, recommendations and order updates to its customers across the different platforms. Leveraging MoEngage’s journey builder feature, Flows, bigbasket will be able to automate workflows to deliver consistent and relevant messages to customers based on their transaction history and preferences. MoEngage will also leverage its AI Engine, Sherpa, to automatically optimize the message content and deliver it at a time when it is most likely to be read by the customer. 

Speaking about this, Mr Raviteja Dodda, Co-founder & CEO, MoEngage said, “Context is the essence of e-commerce. Being able to reach the right user with the right message at the right moment is super-critical. We are confident that MoEngage’s product features such as Flows, Sherpa and Push Amplification+ will not only help bigbasket increase its reach, but also provide a personal touch to their communications across the web, mobile, and email. We are excited to begin this partnership with them and look forward to adding value bigbasket’s business in the coming months." 

Adding his comments, Mr Anand Bhaskaran, Head, Digital Marketing, bigbasket, said, "Customer retention is one of the most important metrics we track at bigbasket. The key to higher retention is delivering consistent and personalized messages to our customers. We hope to leverage MoEngage’s capabilities to segment our customer base, map their journey, craft personalized messages at each stage of our customer’s lifecycle, and automatically deliver these messages at the right time. We look forward to further enhance our retention rates and customer lifetime value with the help of MoEngage." 

Brands such as OYO, Ola, Gaana, Wynk, Airtel, Future Retail, McAfee, Samsung, Mashreq Bank, and more trust MoEngage to understand customer behavior and engage them across channels to improve retention and LTV. It has been featured in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant and is the overall highest-rated vendor in the 2019 Gartner Voice of Customer report for mobile marketing automation. 

About MoEngage 

MoEngage is an intelligent customer engagement platform, built for the mobile-first world. With AI-powered automation, optimization capabilities, and in-built analytics MoEngage enables hyper-personalization at scale across multiple channels like mobile push, email, in- app, web push, On-site messages, and SMS. Fortune 500 brands across 35+ countries such as McAfee, Samsung, and Vodafone use MoEngage to orchestrate their omnichannel campaigns. MoEngage has been featured on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for two consecutive years and is the youngest company on the list. To learn more about omnichannel user engagement with MoEngage, visit www.moengage.com 

About bigbasket

bigbasket was founded in December 2011 in Bangalore by a team of five – V S Sudhakar, HariMenon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh and Abhinay Choudhari. The team has both offline and online retail experience, as they had earlier set up India’s first e-commerce site FabMart.com in 1999, and then established the Fabmall - Trinethra chain of more than 200 grocery supermarket stores in southern India. Servicing over 15 million registered customers, bigbasket has grown into India's largest online supermarket with over 30,000 products from over 1000 brands and presence in 26 cities across the country. bigbasket's online store covers the whole gamut of grocery products across various categories: Fresh Fruits & Vegetables, Grocery & Staples, Beverages, Bakery & Dairy, Branded Foods, Meat & Eggs, Personal Care and Home care & household products. bigbasket is committed to making life simpler and grocery shopping a breeze! bigbasket also introduced 2 businesses in 2018 - bbdaily & bbinstant. bbdaily is a subscription business with 1.3 lac daily orders, where customers can subscribe for fresh milk, fruits, vegetables, bread and other daily items. bbinstant is a one of its kind smart cashless vending machine, with presence in both apartments & corporates. 

Bigbasket Raises $14.5 Mn in Debt Funding from Trifecta Capital

Trifecta Capital on Monday said it has provided ₹ 100 crore (~ US$14.5 milliom) in venture debt to SuperMarket Grocery Supplies, the parent of online food and grocery delivery startup Bigbasket.

"This is the largest venture debt transaction in the country...The funds will be used to meet the working capital and capex requirements of the company," a statement said.

This includes setting up new warehouses, strengthening the cold chain, facilities for reprocessing of fruits and vegetables and for scaling-up of its supply chain for the recently launched milk subscription business - BB Daily and its specialty vending machine business - BB Instant, it added.

In April, BigBasket raised $40 million from CDC Group, the UK government's development finance institution. The funding was part of a bigger round of $150 million that BigBasket is raising at a valuation of $1.2 billion, making it the latest entrant to India's coveted unicorn club of startups.

"We have a clearly identified use case for debt. We are present in 26 cities and continue to optimise our supply chain. A significant part of our business is fresh fruits and vegetables, the bulk of which is sourced directly from farms. It is crucial that we maintain the quality right up to the last mile. Funding such capex requirements is best done through debt," SGS co-founder Hari Menon said.

Bigbasket, which has raised about USD 150 million from South Korea's Mirae Asset Management, UK's CDC Group, and existing investor Alibaba earlier this year, had taken venture debt from Trifecta Capital in 2017. It competes with SoftBank-backed Grofers as well as Amazon.in and Walmart-owned Flipkart.

"...(we) realised that it was a more optimal form of financing for working capital and capex. Venture Debt not only reduces dilution for all shareholders, it reduces cost of capital, improves ROE and expands runway. We recently raised USD 150 million from marquee investors and decided to supplement the equity capital with additional Venture Debt...we hope to be able to leverage their (Trifecta) Bank/Non-Bank relationships for our future fund requirements," SGS co-founder and CFO Vipul Parekh said.

Bigbasket was founded in December 2011 and has operations spread across 26 Indian cities. It is backed by investors like Bessemer Venture Partners, Helion Ventures, Ascent Capital, Sands Capital, Alibaba, CDC and Mirae. PTI SR

BigBasket Raises Fresh $40 Mn from CDC Group of UK Govt at Valuation of $1.2 Bn

Online grocer BigBasket has raised fresh $40 million from CDC Group, the UK government's development finance institution, reported LiveMint today.

The investment is part of a bigger round of $150 million that BigBasket is raising at a valuation of $1.2 billion, making it the latest entrant to India's coveted unicorn club of startups.

The investment in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Limited, which owns and operates BigBasket is along with an investment of about $60 million from Korea’s Mirae Global Asset Investments, another new investor as well as existing backer- China’s Alibaba investing $50 million, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), and media reports.

“We will help the organization support the economic empowerment of its local supplier farmers as it guarantees fair pricing and provides production and quality crop training," CDC’s statement said. “Our capital will directly contribute to a substantial projected increase in smallholder farmers supplying the Bigbasket brand, thereby boosting local income creation and living standards," it added.

Although the CDC Group has been investing in India for over 30 years, the BigBasket deal marks CDC’s first deal in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Srini Nagarajan, Managing Director and Head of Asia at CDC India Advisers, said "Key to CDC’s investment approach is creating a meaningful difference in people’s lives. This is done by backing businesses that fuel job creation to support economic empowerment within communities. This is the reason behind CDC’s investment in SGSPL and brand BigBasket"

CDC, which is one of the largest institutional investors in Indian PE funds and with commitments of over $1.7 billion since 2004 CDC has invested over $1.3 billion in India since 1987.

In the Indian renewable space, it has invested $25 million in IDFC Alternatives-backed clean energy firm Green Infra in November 2013. In April 2017, CDC announced an investment of up to $100 million to support the development of renewable energy projects in India.

The above news was first published at LiveMint

PayTM Mall on Verge of Buying Majority Stake in BigBasket

Paytm Mall, Paytm’s e-commerce platform, is close to pick up a majority stake in online grocery provider BigBasket. The companies are very close to finalize the deal anytime soon, reported Business Standard citing unknown sources.

Both PayTM and BigBasket are portfolio companies of Alibaba. Alibaba invested $200 million in BigBasket in February this year, while for PayTM the Jack Ma founded firm is already one of the biggest investors, thus it could play an important role in BigBasket's acquisition by Paytm Mall.

It is to be noted IndianWeb2 could not verify the report however the pattern suggested that PayTM is indeed interested in BigBasket. In September last year, it was reported that BigBasket could raise Series-E round of funding from investors including Paytm Mall and Alibaba. Eventually in February, the Alibaba invested in BigBasket without any participation from PayTM Mall.

IF the acquisition deal goes through, it will not only give Alibaba a greater hold over India's e-commerce market, which is dominated by the likes of Flipkart and Amazon but will also help both Paytm and BigBasket consolidate revenue through repeat customers.

A report published in Business Standard quoted sources saying that Paytm Mall and BigBasket are discussing the deal, which is in the fast track. But talks are stuck as BigBasket wants the company to be valued 'premium', and also seeks a seat on the Paytm Mall board.

The BigBasket acquisition reports are coming within few days after Paytm's parent, One97 Communications, has received $300 million in fresh funding from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Grocery retail in India is estimated to be over 60% of the country's total retail market. According to analysts, grocery retail market is worth of anywhere between $400 billion to $600 billion at present with the potential to cross $700 billion by 2022. Online grocery is still small, but analysts see it as having huge potential.

Growing e-commerce industry and increasing internet penetration coupled with increasing smartphone users to increase online grocery sales in India through 2021.

In April, it was reported that ​Nasper-backed online food ordering & delivery startup Swiggy is also planning to launch a medicines and grocery delivery service, as it looks to diversify its business model and boost volume beyond just food ordering.

PayTM Mall on Verge of Buying Majority Stake in BigBasket

Paytm Mall, Paytm’s e-commerce platform, is close to pick up a majority stake in online grocery provider BigBasket. The companies are very close to finalize the deal anytime soon, reported Business Standard citing unknown sources.

Both PayTM and BigBasket are portfolio companies of Alibaba. Alibaba invested $200 million in BigBasket in February this year, while for PayTM the Jack Ma founded firm is already one of the biggest investors, thus it could play an important role in BigBasket's acquisition by Paytm Mall.

It is to be noted IndianWeb2 could not verify the report however the pattern suggested that PayTM is indeed interested in BigBasket. In September last year, it was reported that BigBasket could raise Series-E round of funding from investors including Paytm Mall and Alibaba. Eventually in February, the Alibaba invested in BigBasket without any participation from PayTM Mall.

IF the acquisition deal goes through, it will not only give Alibaba a greater hold over India's e-commerce market, which is dominated by the likes of Flipkart and Amazon but will also help both Paytm and BigBasket consolidate revenue through repeat customers.

A report published in Business Standard quoted sources saying that Paytm Mall and BigBasket are discussing the deal, which is in the fast track. But talks are stuck as BigBasket wants the company to be valued 'premium', and also seeks a seat on the Paytm Mall board.

The BigBasket acquisition reports are coming within few days after Paytm's parent, One97 Communications, has received $300 million in fresh funding from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Grocery retail in India is estimated to be over 60% of the country's total retail market. According to analysts, grocery retail market is worth of anywhere between $400 billion to $600 billion at present with the potential to cross $700 billion by 2022. Online grocery is still small, but analysts see it as having huge potential.

Growing e-commerce industry and increasing internet penetration coupled with increasing smartphone users to increase online grocery sales in India through 2021.

In April, it was reported that ​Nasper-backed online food ordering & delivery startup Swiggy is also planning to launch a medicines and grocery delivery service, as it looks to diversify its business model and boost volume beyond just food ordering.

Alibaba Invests $500 Mn In BigBasket and Zomato

In what could be seen as 'Twin' funding, Alibaba has led two financial rounds of India's two domestic startups -- Bigbasket and Zomato, reported Times of India.

As per regulatory filings Alibaba led a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru based online grocer Big Basket while its affiliate Ant Financial has invested $200 million in Gurugram-based food discovery and delivery app Zomato.

Post these two funding, Big Basket is now valued at $950 million while Zomato was valued at $1.1 billion, said the report. Although it is to be noted that last month a report by wall street giant Morgan Stanley’s research arm, Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billio

Both -- Bigbasket and Zomato -- funding transactions saw significant secondary sale of shares executed by existing investors of Bigbasket and Zomato respectively.

In a filing made to the Bombay Stock Exchange, InfoEdge, which runs portals like Naukri.com, said it had divested $50 million in Zomato shares. Big Basket also saw its early investors liquidate around $80-100 million by part selling their stakes. Alibaba had recently picked up a $35 million stake in logistics startup Xpressbees, spun out of baby products retailer FirstCry.

As per documents sourced from business research platform Paper.Vc, Alibaba through Alibaba.com Singapore E Commerce has put $196 million in primary capital in the Bengaluru-based BigBasket with existing investors Abraaj Group, Sands Capital and IFC chipping in with the rest.

Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket said to TOI, "We are going to use this capital to go deeper in our existing markets. Our focus will be to aggressively grow over the coming months."

With this investments in place, China's Alibaba is now dominating India's startup space in payments, e-commerce, logistics and food-delivery.
Jack Ma calls it "iron triangle" of businesses in ecommerce (Paytm Mall, Bigbasket), payments (Paytm) and logistics (XpressBees), which can feed off each other.

Moreover, last month it was also reported that Alibaba, along with Paytm and UCWeb, is planning to launch an over the top (OTT) video streaming service in India soon.

The Zomato funding comes at time when the food delivery segment in India is heating up with new players like UberEats, Ola’s acquisition, for which Ola has committed to invest additional $200 million, to get the slice of food delivery business in India. And now, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market as well.

Alibaba Invests $500 Mn In BigBasket and Zomato

In what could be seen as 'Twin' funding, Alibaba has led two financial rounds of India's two domestic startups -- Bigbasket and Zomato, reported Times of India.

As per regulatory filings Alibaba led a $300 million funding round in Bengaluru based online grocer Big Basket while its affiliate Ant Financial has invested $200 million in Gurugram-based food discovery and delivery app Zomato.

Post these two funding, Big Basket is now valued at $950 million while Zomato was valued at $1.1 billion, said the report. Although it is to be noted that last month a report by wall street giant Morgan Stanley’s research arm, Zomato has shot up its valuation to US $2.5 billio

Both -- Bigbasket and Zomato -- funding transactions saw significant secondary sale of shares executed by existing investors of Bigbasket and Zomato respectively.

In a filing made to the Bombay Stock Exchange, InfoEdge, which runs portals like Naukri.com, said it had divested $50 million in Zomato shares. Big Basket also saw its early investors liquidate around $80-100 million by part selling their stakes. Alibaba had recently picked up a $35 million stake in logistics startup Xpressbees, spun out of baby products retailer FirstCry.

As per documents sourced from business research platform Paper.Vc, Alibaba through Alibaba.com Singapore E Commerce has put $196 million in primary capital in the Bengaluru-based BigBasket with existing investors Abraaj Group, Sands Capital and IFC chipping in with the rest.

Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of BigBasket said to TOI, "We are going to use this capital to go deeper in our existing markets. Our focus will be to aggressively grow over the coming months."

With this investments in place, China's Alibaba is now dominating India's startup space in payments, e-commerce, logistics and food-delivery.
Jack Ma calls it "iron triangle" of businesses in ecommerce (Paytm Mall, Bigbasket), payments (Paytm) and logistics (XpressBees), which can feed off each other.

Moreover, last month it was also reported that Alibaba, along with Paytm and UCWeb, is planning to launch an over the top (OTT) video streaming service in India soon.

The Zomato funding comes at time when the food delivery segment in India is heating up with new players like UberEats, Ola’s acquisition, for which Ola has committed to invest additional $200 million, to get the slice of food delivery business in India. And now, British food delivery unicorn startup Deliveroo entering the Indian market as well.

Amazon India To Start Selling Local Foods From March

Six months after getting $500 million government approval for food retailing in India, e-commerce giant Amazon is all set to sell locally made food items through a wholly-owned subsidiary from March in India, according to a report in Economic Times.

At the same time when Amazon India got food retailing approval it was also reported that the company would buy homegrown e-grocer Bigbasket but eventually Bigbasket raised whopping $280 million instead, from Alibaba and Paytm Mall, and the deal turned up dead.

Now, half a years later, Amazon India is gearing up to sell locally produced and packaged foods through its own wholly-owned subsidiary and will directly competes with Bigbasket and Grofers.

India created a food-retailing sector to allow foreign companies to set up 100% owned subsidiaries to sell food that is sourced and produced locally. ET reports that Food is the only segment where it’s allowed to sell directly to consumers.

Amazon currently runs an online marketplace in India, which means that it cannot sell directly to consumers. It is only a platform for sellers to sell their items.

The government is also considering allowing food retailer to sell personal care items, limited to 25% of their total sales.

ET reports that the government wants Amazon to keep its food-only retailing away from its marketplace business and maintain separate boards, staff, bank accounts and inventories. In fact, it is this clause of government that prevented Amazon to launch the food retailing venture in India, which was originally slated to be launched during Diwali.

To recall, last year Amazon surprised everyone when it bought Whole Foods Market Inc., a 465-store chain selling natural and organic groceries, for a jaw-dropping $13.7 billion.

Earlier in November last year, it was also reported that Reliance Jio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries is all set make entry into India’s online grocery market by linking manufacturers, kirana stores and corner shops to his Reliance Jio customers and mint money, however the conclusion of this report is still awaited.

Google, on other hand, has already launched food delivery app in India, in April 2017. And for same, instead of getting in direct competition, Google has tied up with Bigbasket, Grofers as partners.

Amazon India To Start Selling Local Foods From March

Six months after getting $500 million government approval for food retailing in India, e-commerce giant Amazon is all set to sell locally made food items through a wholly-owned subsidiary from March in India, according to a report in Economic Times.

At the same time when Amazon India got food retailing approval it was also reported that the company would buy homegrown e-grocer Bigbasket but eventually Bigbasket raised whopping $280 million instead, from Alibaba and Paytm Mall, and the deal turned up dead.

Now, half a years later, Amazon India is gearing up to sell locally produced and packaged foods through its own wholly-owned subsidiary and will directly competes with Bigbasket and Grofers.

India created a food-retailing sector to allow foreign companies to set up 100% owned subsidiaries to sell food that is sourced and produced locally. ET reports that Food is the only segment where it’s allowed to sell directly to consumers.

Amazon currently runs an online marketplace in India, which means that it cannot sell directly to consumers. It is only a platform for sellers to sell their items.

The government is also considering allowing food retailer to sell personal care items, limited to 25% of their total sales.

ET reports that the government wants Amazon to keep its food-only retailing away from its marketplace business and maintain separate boards, staff, bank accounts and inventories. In fact, it is this clause of government that prevented Amazon to launch the food retailing venture in India, which was originally slated to be launched during Diwali.

To recall, last year Amazon surprised everyone when it bought Whole Foods Market Inc., a 465-store chain selling natural and organic groceries, for a jaw-dropping $13.7 billion.

Earlier in November last year, it was also reported that Reliance Jio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries is all set make entry into India’s online grocery market by linking manufacturers, kirana stores and corner shops to his Reliance Jio customers and mint money, however the conclusion of this report is still awaited.

Google, on other hand, has already launched food delivery app in India, in April 2017. And for same, instead of getting in direct competition, Google has tied up with Bigbasket, Grofers as partners.

Bigbasket Raising Whopping $280 Mn in Series E Round Led By Paytm Mall and Alibaba

India’s largest online grocery firm BigBasket is raising whopping USD$280 million in Series-E round led by Paytm Mall and China’s Alibaba Group. As a result, BigBasket’s ‘post funding’ valuation will now range between $800-900 million, making the company in close range of 'unicorn' startups.

While existing investors Sands Capital and The Abraaj Group are putting in $80 million, the remaining $200 million is coming from new investors Paytm Mall and Alibaba Group. About $50 million of the overall $200 million investment by Paytm Mall and Alibaba could be used for buying out shares in BigBasket from existing investors. As per the report, the deal has been signed off by all the parties and a formal announcement is just around the corner.

Unlike to previous speculations that Amazon might invest hugely in Bigbasket, the e-grocer has chosen Paytm-Alibaba instead.

BigBasket, which was valued at $450 million during its previous fundraising led by Dubai-based The Abraaj Group, was in discussions with Amazon for an investment but the talks reached a stalemate over various issues, including valuation.

The grocery market in India is still very scattered and very small percentage of this is organised which is why it creates lot of opportunities for e-grocer companies. In India, apart from Bigbasket e-grocery is mainly led by SoftBank-backed Grofers, ZopNow and smaller players like Amazon Now and Satvacart. And they are all ready to battle it out to get a piece of a market, which will be valued at whopping $1.2 trillion by 2020.

As for online retail, grocery accounts for a mere 4% share, show data from consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance.

Founded in 2011, Bigbasket claims to have 5 million customers and has registered about Rs 1,400 crore in revenue in fiscal year 2017.

Flipkart too has fallen for grocery lucrativeness as couple of months back the e-commerce giant had already announced that the company was considering selling groceries again.

In April, we shared how Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy at the TiE event in New Delhi revealed his company's plans of entering the grocery market in India. He had said, “Yes we will get into grocery... 80 per cent of units bought in India is grocery… $400-600 million is grocery market, so we have to get into it."

As of now, its now a three-way battle -- Amazon, which will now ride solo; Flipkart, which after failing earlier getting it restarted into grocery again; and BigBasket-Paytm-Alibaba combine.

Paytm and Alibaba's investment in BigBasket will give it enough ammunition to defend its turf, while the combine will gain an entry into the fastest-growing online retail segment.

Good News for Online Grocery Business As Order Value Rises 33% YoY

The good news in the online grocery business is that people are ordering more at a time. Between January and May, the average order value rose 33% year-on-year to Rs 1,024.4, says a study by Kalagato, an India focused data analytics firm.

Barely 5% of India’s Rs 20-lakh-crore grocery market today belongs to organized players which gives both offline and online grocers enough room to grow.



The online F&G delivery market alone is estimated to be around $600 million in India and is pegged to touch $5 billion by 2020 at a CAGR of 72%. This market has been largely dominated by three key players Amazon, BigBasket and Grofers.

Currently, the margins that online grocers make are around 13% on sales but the cost of delivery remains high at Rs 80 per order. So presumably these startups begin to break even on the cost of delivery @ Rs. 620 per order(average), as per Kalagato. Analysts believe that at the current scale of 10,000-20,000 orders a day, the inventory-led model seems to have a better margin profile.



Currently, Big Basket dominates the space in India with a presence across 25 cities and an estimated revenue run rate of an annualised $300 million or roughly Rs 2,000 crore.

Amazon has plans to invest around $500 million in the food retailing segment in India and there has been similar foreign direct investment proposals by BigBasket and Grofers also. Flipkart will be making an re-entry into the online grocery market during this quarter.

In 2016, India was the fifth largest market in Asia Pacific for online grocery retailing at US$135 million. The leading country was China, followed by Japan and South Korea. Despite the channel being relatively new in India, it was amongst the top five countries in Asia Pacific in 2016 in terms of growth.

As of now, the opportunity for organised grocery retailers is pegged at close to Rs 3.5 lakh crore based on demands assessed for urban metropolitan towns and cities with a population of more than one million.

Amazon To Buy Online Grocer BigBasket

American e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. is in preliminary talks to buy the Indian grocery site BigBasket, as per the reports by ET and Livemint.

The talks about possible acquisition are at an early stage, the people said, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are private. This is however third time in this year when Bigbasket's sale to Amazon was reported by any news source as earlier in March, this year, a similar report was circulated however Hari Menon, founder of Bigbasket, stopped the news from spreading further when, in an interview to Moneycontrol, he said that its - "Completely, untrue".

The Bigbasket sale to Amazon has again surfaced today when news sources including Bloomberg reported about early stage discussion which may not lead to sale.

Backed by investors like Helion Venture, Brand Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, BigBasket is run by Bengaluru-based SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt, and is India’s largest online grocer which operates in about 25 cities across the country.

Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has vowed to spend $5 billion in India in coming years as he competes against local rivals. Amazon’s success in the country has pushed the two largest domestic e-commerce players, Flipkart Ltd. and Snapdeal, into a preliminary agreement to combine.

Recently, Amazon India has sought approval to invest and partner with the government in food supply and may soon get $500 million FDI approval for food retailing in India. Amazon said in an email in February that it has sought a license for food retail trading from the government’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), which oversees foreign investments into the country.

Founded in October 2011 by Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar and Abhinay Choudhari, BigBasket has raised $150 million last year in a funding round led by Dubai's Abraaj Group, and its backers also include Bessemer Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners. In March, BigBasket raised 450 million rupees ($7 million) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital to set up new warehouses and strengthen its delivery network.

So far Bigbasket has raised a total of $291.76 million in 8 rounds (till Series-E) from 11 investors.

Google Launches Its Food-Delivery and Home Services App in India; Partners with Bigbasket, Grofers, UrbanClap

Google has launched a new food delivery and home services aggregator the India market. Called Areo, the app allows users to order food delivery and home services from their smartphones.

Areo lets users search for local restaurants and businesses like electricians, plumbers, and painters, and schedule their deliveries or appointments through the app. The app is available as a free download on the Google Play store and is currently operational in Bengaluru and Mumbai only, and for Android devices. The app support will be eventually rolled out to other cities of the country in the upcoming days.

Essentially, Areo is aggregator kind of app with all the food delivery and home services apps under one roof.

Notably, Areo has signed up few related startups like UrbanClap and Zimmber for home services and Freshmenu, Box8 & Faasos for food ordering.

Furthermore, Google Areo also help users to shop from several other grocery apps under one single platform. Be it Grofers or BigBasket, the users will be able to purchase anything and everything from these applications under one roof, add on a single cart and order. All this reduces the burden of downloading dozen of apps on your phone.

Notably, missing from the partners list however are prominent players like Zomato and Swiggy in food delivery and Amazon-backed Housejoy in home services.

A Google spokesperson said they are currently not charging partners for this service but they are yet to respond to our queries on how these partners were selected or do they plan to charge these partners in the future.

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