[Funding alert] Grofers continues to add funds to its cart, bags Rs 321 Cr from parent company

E-grocery company Grofers has added more funds to its cart, as what appears to be a part of its Series F funding drive. It had recently bagged Rs 142.6 crore funding from Bennett and Coleman Private Limited (BCCL or the Times Group) and an infusion of Rs 321 crore from its parent company in Singapore, Grofers International Pte Ltd, according to Ministry of Corporate Affairs documents.

In May this year, the Gurugram-based online grocery platform secured more than $200 million in Series F funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund. The round also saw participation from a new investor, South Korean investment firm KTB, apart from its existing investors, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital.

After that, it has been adding more funds to its cart. In July, the e-grocer raised $10 million from Abu Dhabi-based entity Capital Investment LLC, said to be an investment vehicle of the UAE-based Abu Dhabi Investment Group. 

Founded in 2013 by IIT graduates Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, Grofers has expanded its own range of brands over the last year and has over 800 products spread across categories such as pantry staples and kitchen ingredients, FMCG, personal hygiene covering soaps, shower gels, and facewash, household needs including cleaning products, and furnishing items.

Nearly 90 percent of Grofers’ users are already using the platform's owned brands such as Grofers Happy Day and Grofers Happy Home. The company plans to increase its range to 1,200 products by the end of 2020.

At present, Grofers claims to have a network of over 6,000 partner stores on its platform, and delivers over 25 million products to customers every month. A majority of these products are sourced from over 200 small and medium manufacturing enterprises across the country. According to the company, it achieved an annual revenue of $400 million in the last fiscal year.

In September, Grofers had told PTI that it is aiming to cross the $1 billion revenue mark by the end of the year, boosted by strong growth in both its online and offline businesses. It had shared that it was working with brick-and-mortar stores in Delhi-NCR to convert them into its own branded outlets and that it was looking to add 700 such kirana stores to its network.

The company, which competes with the likes of BigBasket and Amazon Fresh, is also gearing up to hit the capital market with an initial public offer (IPO) within the next three years.

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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