Exclusive: Micro-delivery startup Daily Ninja secures $1.5 Mn Series A round from Sequoia Capital

Subscription-based hyperlocal delivery startup Daily Ninja has raised $1.5 million from Sequoia Capital. This is the maiden investment from Sequoia in micro-delivery segment. Three sources aware of the details of funding confirmed Entrackr about the deal.

Entrackr has sent an email to Daily Ninja, but the company has denied such development. An email to Sequoia didn’t elicit any response at the time of writing this post.

“Daily Ninja and Sequoia were engaged in talks for three months. The VC firm has completed due diligence last month and invested $1.5 million earlier this month,” said sources.

Founded by BITS Pilani graduates Sagar Yarnalkar and Anurag Gupta in July 2015, Daily Ninja allows users to subscribe for daily needs such as milk, bread, eggs, curd, dosa batter, paneer and water cans among several others.

The company had raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Aprameya Radhakrishna, Naman Sarawagi, Afsal Salu and others in September 2015. A year later, it bagged Pre Series A round of funding from LetsVenture and Tracxn Syndicate. The round saw participation by angels including Anupam Mittal and Kunal Shah and others.

Can micro-delivery platforms give answer to loss-making online grocery businesses?

Currently, Daily Ninja claims to have over 95 per cent customer retention rate with about 13,000 active customers out of which 3,000 have subscribed for other essentials besides milk.

Emergence and so far funding in micro-delivery space

So far, leading micro-delivery startups such as Milkbasket, Daily Ninja, Doodhwaala and Supr (also known as SuprDaily) have secured total funding of $6 million (including this round) from investors including Y Combinator, Lenovo Capital, Blume Ventures along with several angel investors.

In India, the serviceable market opportunity for daily essentials consumed by people living in high-rises is pegged at $10 billion.

Gurugram-based micro-delivery startup Milkbasket had raised an undisclosed amount in a Pre-Series A funding round from Blume Ventures, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group (LCIG).

Mumbai-based Supr secured Rs 10 crore from a consortium of Silicon Valley angels including Soma Capital, Great Oaks Ventures, 122 West Ventures, Y combinator partners – Paul Buchheit, Jared Friedman and others.

Another Bengaluru-based micro-delivery platform Doodhwaala raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A round from Tom Varkey.

Daily Ninja: Website