BENGALURU: Supermarket Grocery, which runs and operates the online grocery brand BigBasket, has received $150 million in a financing round led by South Korea’s Mirae Asset- Naver Asia Growth Fund, UK’s CDC Group, and existing investor Alibaba, said the company on Monday.
This round has boosted the company’s valuation to over $1 billion, pushing it to the coveted ‘unicorn’ club.
Big Basket plans to use the newly-infused funds to deepen its presence in existing markets with development in its first mile, scaling up supply chain capabilities and developing new reseller channels.
“We have a unique opportunity to build one of the largest grocery businesses in the country in the country and we expect the capital raised in this round to continue to enable us to do just that," said VS Sudhakar, co-founder of BigBasket.
This investment also marks Mirae Asset Financial Group’s largest investment in the Indian internet sector. The company invests in life insurance, securities and venture capital, and has become one of the world’s largest investors in emerging market equities. As of December 2018, they managed assets worth a total of $128.5 billion.
“Big Basket offers a transformational and convenient experience to its consumers, which makes it a preferred grocery platform," said Ashish Dave, head of India investments for Mirae Asset Global Investments. “As India moves towards organised retail that offers standardised quality, comfort and speed in the shopping experience, we firmly believe the Big Basket brand will continue to define this segment as a category leader."
Big Basket last raised $300 million in February 2018 as part of its series E financing which was led by the Alibaba Group. This round that also included an element of secondary shares, gave the company a post-money valuation of $850 million.
Following this, Big Basket make three acquisitions as it forayed into different services as such as milk delivery and instant deliveries through vending machines, in a bid to increase frequencies in transactions.
Big Basket competes with the likes of SoftBank-backed Grofers, Walmart-backed Flipkart, and Amazon. The funding will help Big Basket battle these companies which have deep pockets and have been aggressively growing in this sector.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.
