As the core business of e-commerce companies have been impacted severely due to Covid-19, many are now reconfiguring their strategy and offering to deliver grocery and daily essentials to sustain and survive.
The demand in these categories is experiencing an all-time high and companies with traction are not shying away to encash.
After a clutch of companies added grocery to their bouquet of offerings, full-stack foodtech firm Box8 has followed by introducing grocery ordering on its app. The company has added an additional feature called ‘InstaFresh’.
For now, the Mumbai-based company is only offering delivery of limited essential grocery products in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram. Under the newly introduced feature, Box8 is offering delivery of dairy products, self-branded bakery products, fruits and vegetables.
The company claims that it will deliver the items within 30 minutes.
While we aren’t sure what kind of demand Box8 has been garnering for its grocery vertical, the move will certainly provide earning opportunities for its delivery staff who have almost become jobless due to the lockdown.
Unlike many cloud kitchens, Box8 has its own fleet of delivery staff to fulfil orders originating from its native app. The addition of the new service has come at a time when many companies such as Snapdeal, BharatPe, DealShare, JioMart, NoBroker and ShopClues, among several others, have enabled grocery ordering on their platforms.
Zomato had announced its debut in grocery via Zomato Market while Meesho launched grocery offerings to support their reseller network at a time when their core business is at a standstill. However, Facebook-backed Meesho has a long term strategy for the segment.
Entrackr had exclusively reported the development last week.
Meanwhile, Box8 looks set to close a significant funding round. According to regulatory filings, the company has passed a special resolution to approve the subdivision of its equity shares from the nominal value of Rs 10 each into 10 shares of Re 1 each with a view to increase the liquidity of its shares.
Another special resolution was passed to approve the allotment of 29 Series C2 CCPS at Rs. 271,712.13 per share to Trifecta Venture Debt, each partly paid at Rs 1 per share, right before the anticipated funding round. Since the beginning of this year, Box8 has raised Rs 12 crore debt from Trifecta.
