Bigbasket turns Unicorn with $150 Mn Series F round from Alibaba and others

Bigbasket has finally entered the league of Unicorn startups with latest $150 million Series F round from Alibaba, UK Government-owned CDC Group and South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global investment. The financing round valued e-grocer over a little over $1.2 billion.

The firm would be the second Unicorn of this year. Earlier this month, logistics firm Delhivery had raised $413 million at a valuation of $2.28 billion (post-money).

Alibaba and CDC Group are putting $50 million and $40 million respectively while Mirae pours in $59.9 million, reports Bloomberg Quint citing RoC filings.

"Following this Series F investment, our estimate of the post-money valuation of Bigbasket is $2.28 billion. We believe the company will likely raise more money as part of this Series F financing," mentions Vivek Durai, co-founder, and CEO paper.vc.

The fresh proceeds would help BigBasket in fighting against Amazon and Grofers that raised $60 million from SoftBank as well as micro delivery platforms Milkbasket, Dailyninja and Suprdaily among others.

Flipkart is also a competitor of the Bengaluru-based firm but has not been appearing aggressive so far.

Last year, Bigbasket entered microdelivery space by acquiring two startups - Pune-based RainCan and Morningcart. Currently, it runs microdelivery service under the brand name - BBDaily across six cities. Entrackr was first to report the acquisition of both firms last year (read here and here).

Two months ago, media reports had surfaced emphasising the participation of the aforementioned investors in $150 million round in BigBasket. Last year, the firm had scooped up $300 million Series E round led by Alibaba.

Although BigBasket leads the pack in online grocery space, the overall volume divides and creates a pile of losses for each of them.

However, Bigbasket had been able to improve its financial performance in FY18 with a 35 per cent increase in revenue to Rs 1,606 crore and had controlled its losses by 53 per cent to Rs 310 crore.

Competition in the online grocery segment has been intensifying as Swiggy had entered grocery and other hyperlocal delivery with Swiggy Store while Zomato is expected to follow the path.

The Ant Financial-backed company is currently in talks with dunzo for a potential acquisition. Given the heightening competition, this round would be strengthening Bigbasket's position to fend off rivals.

Disclaimer: The headline and post has been updated after getting inputs from Vivek Durai.