[YS Exclusive] Dunzo files provision for Series C funding, set to raise close to $30 M

According to Dunzo's filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), the hyperlocal concierge app has made provision for Series C funding, where Blume Ventures and Google India have committed participation in this round of funding. It has been speculated for a while now the company would be raising $25 - $30 million from existing investors. However, sources confirm the fund raise will also include a new investor.

Last year, during the same time, Dunzo had raised its Series B funding of $12.3 million by Google, making it the search-engine giant's first investment in an Indian startup. From a WhatsApp-based model, this hyperlocal “task running” business evolved into a rudimentary app, and now has over 80 percent of its tasks that are run by machines and algorithms.

In October this year, Dunzo completed over 1 million transactions to date and completes an average of 30,000 transactions every day from across four cities. Since its last fundraise, the company has launched in Gurugram, Hyderabad, Pune and is set to launch in Chennai. It has also piloted bike-taxi services in Gurugram.

The on-demand business is a tough one – the frequency of the business needs to be high, there needs to be a strong liquidity of demand and supply. An analyst, on account of anonymity, had then said: “The product is great, the way the operations run is seamless, but the question arises in the scale.”

Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner, Blume Ventures in an earlier conversation with YourStory had said that he believes that scale isn’t restricted to food delivery and cab services. “Hyperlocal businesses are tough, but Dunzo has proven that there is a need in the market. It has gotten a cult following of sorts. If you look at the behaviour that they modelled in the market, the customers and the metrics, it’s gotten stronger. They even operationally broke even few months back," he said.

Dunzo currently claims to make Rs 25 off each transaction.