Exclusive: BigBasket acquires micro-delivery startup Morning Cart

Micro-delivery aka milk-tech is hot, and BigBasket has been ramping up its foray into the segment through acquisitions. Amidst finalising a deal with Pune-based RainCan, the Alibaba-backed company has struck a deal with daily essential ordering platform Morning Cart.

According to three sources, the deal has been signed and the Bengaluru-based Morning Cart team is joining Bigbasket.

“The deal is actually an acquihire and consists of stocks,” point out two sources. Bengaluru-based Morning Cart services a handful of areas in the city including Electronics City and Bellandur.

Importantly, Morning Cart has not raised any capital from external sources. "The offered stocks is largely attached to performance parameters and future projections agreed by both parties," explain the aforementioned sources.

While Anuj Bishnoi, co-founder of Morning Cart didn't confirm the acquisition, he mentioned talks are on with Bigbasket. Entrackr has sent an email to Bigbasket for a comment. We will update the post as any response comes in.

Morning Cart (link) evangelises a subscription model which delivers morning and daily essentials such as dairy, meat, bakery, perishables, and staples on a daily basis to customers. Currently, Morning Cart does about 4,000 orders a day, as outlined by sources.

Flush with $300 million fresh fund infusion from Alibaba, Bigbasket has been eyeing to enter the subscription-based grocery cum milk delivery service from a few months. Bigbasket would leverage Morning Cart to begin its micro-delivery operations in Bengaluru soon.

The e-grocer is also in advance talk to take over RainCan.

Over the past six weeks, a lot of action has been observed in the micro-delivery segment. Besides Bigbasket, Swiggy is in an advanced stage to acquire Mumbai-based SuprDaily.

Since building a loyal consumer-base has turned out to be difficult, matching unit economics in a pure-play grocery delivery model is tough. However, micro-delivery platforms promise loyalty by delivering milk and others daily essentials.

Bigbasket eyes micro-delivery spaces to create more stickiness and accelerate its overall scale.

So far, the micro-delivery space has been dominated by Milkbasket, DailyNinja, and Doodhwala. While Milkbasket has scooped up about $8 million risk capital from the likes of Lenovo Capital, Unilever Ventures, Kalaari Capital and Blume, Sequoia-backed DailyNinja recently raised $3 million in a fresh round led by Saama Capital.