Decoding Reliance-backed Dunzo’s Series F round and captable

The year 2022 has started on a high note for hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo as it pulled off its largest funding round till date—$240 million led by Reliance Retail Ventures. While the company announced the round early this month, it didn’t disclose its valuation and split of the round.

Fintrackr has decoded these details through the company’s regulatory filings. Apart from Reliance, existing investors Lightrock and Lightbox also participated in the Series F round along with Dunzo’s co-founder and chief executive Kabeer Biswas.

Dunzo has allotted 75,439 Series F preference shares at a per share price of Rs 212,887 to raise Rs 1,606 crore or close to $216 million, filings show. Reliance Retail has pumped in Rs 1480.2 crore whereas Lightrock, Lightbox and Biswas have invested Rs 74 crore, Rs 51 crore and Rs 2.12 lakh, respectively.

According to Fintrackr’s estimates, Dunzo has been valued at $765 million (post-money) following the Series F round. Its valuation took a jump of over two-fold in less than a year as compared to the last round in March 2021 when it was valued at $300 million.

With 25.86% stake, Reliance Ventures has emerged as the largest stakeholder in Dunzo. Its first institutional backer Google controls 18.74% whereas Lightbox and Lightrock command 11.81% and 3.86% stake, respectively. Importantly, the collective stake of founders has been reduced to only 3.95% after this round. 

Dunzo’s complete shareholding pattern can be seen below:

The Series F round for Dunzo comes at an opportune time because the company has been witnessing intense competition in the quick commerce space with the entry of Zepto and BlinkIt(formerly Grofers). BlinkIt had raised $100 million from Zomato while Zepto also scored $100 million in its Series C round at a valuation of $570 million. 

Swiggy also committed to invest $700 million in Swiggy Instamart. The new round and Reliance’s long term bet will help Dunzo counter these well-funded companies.

Dunzo had also improved its financial performance in FY21 with its income growing by 66.5% to Rs 45.8 crore in FY21. According to Fintrackr, the Biswas-led company had managed to reduce its annual losses by 33.3% to Rs 225.7 crore in FY21 from Rs 338.4 crore in the preceding fiscal year (FY20).