The fund will be used to meet the working capital and capex requirements of the company including setting up of new warehouses, strengthening the cold chain and setting up facilities for reprocessing of fruits and vegetables.
Venture Debt firm Trifecta Capital has invested Rs 100 crore in SuperMarket Grocery Supplies Pvt Ltd, the parent firm of online grocery company BigBasket.
The fund will be used to meet the working capital and capex requirements of the company including setting up of new warehouses, strengthening the cold chain and setting up facilities for reprocessing of fruits and vegetables. It will also be used for scaling-up of its supply chain for the recently launched milk subscription business - BB Daily and its specialty vending machine business - BB Instant.
"We have a clearly identified use case for debt. We are present in 26 cities and continue to optimise our supply chain. A significant part of our business is fresh fruits and vegetables, the bulk of which is sourced directly from farms. It is crucial that we maintain the quality right up to the last mile. Funding such capex requirements is best done through debt,” said Hari Menon, co-founder, SuperMarket Grocery Supplies.
"We had taken venture debt from Trifecta Capital in 2017 and realised that it was a more optimal form of financing for working capital and capex. Venture debt not only reduces dilution for all shareholders, it reduces cost of capital, improves ROE and expands runway. We recently raised $150 million from marquee investors and decided to supplement the equity capital with additional venture debt," added Vipul Parekh, co-founder and chief financial officer of the company.
BigBasket last announced a fund raise of $150 million from Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, CDC Group and existing investor Alibaba Group.
Founded in 2011, BigBasket is headquartered in Bengaluru and serves resellers across India. The company competes with Softbank-backed Grofers, among others.
