Grofers receives $70 Mn Series F tranche from Softbank at $567 Mn valuation

Grofers International has received $70 million worth tranche as a part of Series F round from SVF Growth valuing the company at around $ 567.34 million. The latest tranche is a part of the $200 million round that was announced earlier this year by the Masayoshi Son-led group.

With participation from KTB Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global, the round was regarded as the biggest funding round in any grocery startup surpassing rival Bigbasket’s $150 million funding round that was led by Alibaba.

Last month, the Gurugram-based startup had received an additional $10 million top-up in the same round from Abu Dhabi based Capital Investments at an estimated valuation of $497 million.

Additionally, Grofers Indian subsidiary has received Rs 275.44 crores ( around $38.5 million) from its Singapore based parent entity- Grofers International on July 16, according to RoC filings with MCA.

Previously, the Albinder Dhindsa led company had raised $120 million in Softbank led Series C round in November 2015 at a valuation of approximately $400 million. But its valuation took a hit of around 40% in February 2018 when it raised its Series E round after switching from its original business model of 90 minutes delivery to inventory centred model.

After switching model, the grocery delivery startup has endured a swift turnaround claiming profitability in Delhi and on its way to breakeven in Kolkata as well.

Grofers has been focussing on pushing its private label with 45% of the revenue generated by sales of its own-label. It claims to process 60,000 orders daily, and more than half of the orders fulfilled include its private label products.

Recently, the company organized its semi-annual Grand Orange Bag Days (GOBD) sale around the Independence Day clocking a revenue of Rs 115 crore by offering customers a 100% cashback on the products, selling roughly 1.3 crore product on the first day of the sale.

Before the start of the sale, Grofers had hired around 5,000 employees to ramp up delivery and warehousing teams across 16 cities in the country. It claims to be on track to hit monthly GMV of Rs 550 crores fuelled by the increased demand due to the GOBD sale this month.

Hat tip: paper.vc