Local venture debt fund Alteria Capital pumped in US$ 11 million into Dunzo, a hyperlocal delivery startup based out of India. The company plans to use the fresh capital to become a well-established profitable e-commerce company and to scale new heights in terms of its operations.
This round comes approximately five months after it raised US$45 million in a funding round led by Lightbox, which catapulted Dunzo’s valuation to around 200 million USD. The startup has solid backers like Blume Ventures, Aspada Investments, STIC Ventures, and 3L Capital, etc. apart from Google.
Also, the funding has just arrived at a time when Dunzo was in the midst of fierce competition from one of its competitors, Swiggy. The concierge service recently launched by Swiggy is attracting customers towards Swiggy. The funding will allow Dunzo to strengthen its operations and counter the competition faced by it.
Dunzo was founded in 2015, and it connects partners, merchants, and users and drives transactions across multi-channels like e-commerce, courier, and commute. As of now, Dunzo is present in 8 cities, including Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Jaipur, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Jaipur.
“Profitability has always been the barometer of success, and we’re seeing it manifest across several of our micro-markets,” said Kabeer Biswas, CEO, and co-founder at Dunzo.
“As markets turn profitable, we are able to fuel our growth with debt while having a significantly higher return on investment for customers and stakeholders.” he added.
India’s hyper-local market is on a surge and is expected to exceed US 323 million dollars by 2020. The incisive growth rate is driven by the ever-increasing penetration and rampant use of smartphones in India, coupled with the rise in disposable income. Consumer preferences and shopping patterns have changed too, and there is an increased preference for curated and made-to-order products and services.
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