The Indian startup Zepto, which specializes in carrying out activities to provide grocery delivery services to consumers, is currently preparing to go public.
The valuation of the mentioned company has more than doubled, reaching $3.6 billion as part of a financing round conducted by US and Indian investors.
According to the results of the specified process, Zepto managed to raise $665 million. These funds were received by the company from new investors. The financing round was attended by private equity firm Avenir, venture capital company Lightspeed, and Avra, a new fund started by former head of Y Combinator Continuity Anu Hariharan. Existing investors, including Glade Brook, Nexus, and StepStone Group, jointly led this round. The relevant information is contained in a statement released by Zepto, based in Mumbai, one of the largest agglomerations in the world.
Based on May’s performance, the company is on track to handle goods worth more than $1 billion per year. The firm’s data shows that about three-quarters of its 350 so-called dark stores, or warehouses, generated operating profits last month. Currently, stores need six months to become profitable. It is worth noting that in the past this period was about two years.
Zepto intends to double the number of its warehouses to more than 700 by March next year. The company plans to realize the corresponding goal by reinvesting sales from mature stores to fund the expansion.
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the firm Aadit Palicha said that Zepto will be ready to go public relatively soon.
Childhood friends Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra dropped out of the computer science program at Stanford and returned to India, where they founded a startup in 2021. At that time they were still teenagers.
Zepto is an active participant in the Indian grocery delivery market. Currently, the main features of this functional space are a high level of competition and low margin. Zepto’s competitors in the mentioned market are the Indian unit Amazon.com Inc., which also owns the best American delivery service, and local companies including Swiggy Ltd., backed by SoftBank Group Corp., publicly traded Zomato Ltd., and BigBasket, a conglomerate of Tata Group.
