[Funding alert] Grocery delivery startup Zepto raises $60M as early-stage round at $225M valuation

Mumbai-headquartered grocery-delivery startup Zepto on Monday said it raised an early-stage funding round worth $60 million, at a valuation of $225 million, to expand its 10-minute grocery delivery nationwide.

Founded in June 2021 by two 19-year-olds — Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra — Zepto, with its optimised network of ‘dark stores’ or micro-warehouses, claims to be consistently delivering groceries and essentials in 10 minutes through a combination of technical and operational excellence.

Speaking to YourStory, Aadit said a large part of the capital will be deployed into launching new cloud stores and penetrating deep into the market.

The round is backed by institutional investors such as Glade Brook Capital, Nexus, and Y Combinator, and individual investors, including Lachy Groom, Neeraj Arora, Manik Gupta, and more.

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Speaking about the platform, Kaivalya Vohra, Co-founder and CTO, Zepto, said,

“Customers love a rapid delivery experience. The data speaks for itself – once we started delivering in 10 minutes, our NPS shot up and has constantly remained at around 85 with over 50 percent weekly user retention rate, which shows the incredibly strong customer love for our product.”

With a tech office in Bengaluru and operations headquarter in Mumbai, Zepto has also built a strong team to manage its pace of growth. Its management includes senior leaders from some of the nation’s largest startups, including Flipkart, Uber, Dream11, Pharmeasy, and Pepperfry, to name a few.

Aadit Palicha, Founder and CEO, Zepto, said,

“Q-Commerce in India is an opportunity of epic proportions and strong unit economics. We’ve been ignoring the noise and executing heads-down for a long time to perfect this model, and our efforts are paying off. Today, we’re consistently growing 200 percent every single month, with an unstoppable team, robust product infrastructure, and deep access to institutional capital.”

“Quick ecommerce is poised to transform shops around the world. Zepto has emerged as a leader in India, with exponential growth and best-in-class execution. We look forward to partnering as Zepto brings a magical consumer experience across India,” said Paul Hudson, CIO at Glade Brook Capital.

Suvir Sujan, Managing Director at Nexus Venture Partners, added, “Zepto is disrupting ecommerce in India in a way we’ve never seen before, and we’re super impressed by their innovative mindset, technology-first thinking, and lightning-fast execution.”

Zepto is expanding across Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi-NCR, and will be launching in key areas across Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata in the next 30 days.

The startup is also hiring across engineering, operations, marketing, and finance verticals.