Exclusive: After raising $3 Mn from Unilever, Milkbasket raises fresh round from Kalaari

Subscription-based micro delivery platform Milkbasket has raised a fresh round from Kalaari Capital. According to two sources aware of the deal, Kalaari had recently concluded due diligence in the Gurugram-headquartered company.

While the amount invested by Vani Kola-led VC firm could not be independently verified by Entrackr, sources indicate it’s in the range of $2.5 to 3.5 million. This is the second round of funding for Milbasket this year.

However, Milkbasket declined the report. Email sent to Kalaari didn't elicit any response till the publication of the post. We will update the post as response comes in.

Earlier in January this year, it raised a $3 million Pre Series A led by Unilever Ventures. Last August, the company had closed an undisclosed amount from Blume Ventures, Lenovo Capital. Besides, it also secured from Chinese and Indian angels.

Founded in 2015 by Anant and Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain, and Yatish Talvadia, Milkbasket delivers milk, grocery, and other daily essentials at customers’ door every morning. Currently, it claims to have a reach to 10,000 households.

Over the past couple of years, several micro-delivery platforms like Milkbasket, Dailyninja, MrNeeds et al emerged in different cities and they claim to have a secret ingredient for profitability. Unlike online grocery platforms, a majority of micro-delivery platforms are built on the premise of milk subscription.

Though the micro-delivery platforms are built around milk subscription, they see grocery and FMCG products as a natural extension.

Also read: Can micro-delivery platforms give an answer to loss-making online grocery businesses?

At present, there are several micro delivery platforms in different cities are evangelising the subscription model. While Suprdaily operates in a few pockets of Mumbai, Dailyninja (Bengaluru), MrNeeds (Noida, Ghaziabad, and parts of Delhi) and Doodhwala (Bengaluru and Pune) are other players in the subscription-based daily essential segment.

Dailyninja had raised $1.5 million round from Sequoia Capital in December last year. It was the maiden investment from the VC firm in the micro-delivery segment. Suprdaily secured Rs 10 crore from a consortium of Silicon Valley angels while MrNeeds and Doodhwala also secured seed capital.

In India, the serviceable market opportunity for daily essentials consumed by people living in high-rises is pegged at $10 billion. Excited by adoption and emergence of subscription-based micro-delivery startups, Alibaba-backed BigBasket is also planning to explore the segment.

Milkbasket: Website