Mumbai: Milkbasket, owned and operated by Doorstep Retail Solutions Pvt. Ltd, has raised $10.5 million in a round led by Unilever Ventures, the daily grocery delivery services startup said on Tuesday. Mayfield India, Kalaari Capital and Blume Ventures, besides a few Indian family offices also participated in the round, it said in a statement.
Launched in early 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia, Milkbasket, which started with daily milk delivery service, now caters to all household grocery needs. “Milkbasket is proud to be serving over 100,000 households today. While the industry is witnessing a number of players adopting our model, this funding, our largest fund infusion till date, is a testament to our robust execution, the team and continued trust of our investors in the growth of Milkbasket," said Anant Goel, co-founder and chief executive, Milkbasket.
Milkbasket derives more than 70% of its revenue from non-milk products (from an assortment of 8,500-plus products). The startup, which has a substantial presence in Gurugram, had expanded its services to Noida, Delhi and Bengaluru over the last 6-7 months.
Till date, it has raised close to $26 million in equity funding from Mayfield Advisors, Beenext, Kalaari Capital, Unilever Ventures, Lenovo Capital, Blume Ventures and a few family offices.
“We are steadily and surely moving towards our goal of achieving $1 billion ARR (annual recurring revenue) by 2021. Together with investing in talent and geographic expansion, Milkbasket continues to invest in customer-centric innovation, and this funding will help us focus on all the three areas to build a national market leader in online grocery," said Goel.
Hyperlocal delivery firms in India have seen strong interest from investors right from early- to late-stage funding, driven by the large and fragmented market for groceries, which is dominated by mom-and-pop stores and local grocers.
Mint had reported in March that Sequoia Capital-backed milk and grocery delivery startup DailyNinja was in early talks to raise $18-20 million in fresh capital. Others such as Country Delight recently raised $10 million led by Matrix Partners, while Doodhwala raised $2.2 million in February 2018 from impact investor Omnivore Partners.
