Dipti Gore
Online grocery delivery startup urDoorstep had recently raised Rs. 10 crore in a round equally shared by an undisclosed high net-worth individual in shares and Lakshmi Vilas Bank in debt.
This current round of investments is a bridge round for the company post its 3 crores capital raised in July 2016 led by CP Murali, former President and COO of Aricnet Technologies. The company had also raised an undisclosed amount of funding as its Series A round in October 2015 led by Jupiter Capital.
urDOORSTEP.com has been conceptualised and brought to life by its founder Dinesh Malpani. He is an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (ISB), and he has led major retail corporations for over 20 years.
“With the current round, we will be expanding to new pin codes in the city. We are eyeing EBITDA breakeven by first quarter of 2017-18. We are doing this by managing cost of customer acquisition and logistics cost,” said Dinesh Malpani, founder of urDoorstep as per ET.
The online grocery market in India is led by companies like BigBasket and Grofers. The former had raised $245+ million in its 7 rounds of funds since its launch in October 2011 with the most recent being $150 million as Series D in March 2016. Grofers has raised $165+ million in its 4 rounds of funds since its launch in December 2o13. While BigBasket has only 1 acquisition under its wing so far, Grofers has already touched 2 and counting.
Though the numbers look great with the leading players, there have been incidents with other hyperlocal delivery startups who have either shutdown or pivoted owning to very high logistics cost, small margins and high competition in the space.