NEW DELHI: Ending the unicorn drought in India amid the continued funding winter, on-line grocery firm Zepto on Friday introduced it has raised $200 million in its Sequence E spherical, valuing the corporate at $1.4 billion.
The fundraise introduced in new traders, with the StepStone Group main the spherical.
US-based Goodwater Capital joined the spherical as a brand new investor. Present traders like Nexus Enterprise Companions, Glade Brook Capital, Lachy Groom and extra, doubled down in Zepto with significant follow-on investments.
Based in July 2021, Zepto stated it plans to go public within the subsequent 2-3 years.
“This enterprise is about execution and we’re succeeding as a result of our execution is robust. We’re on this to construct a generational firm and it actually looks like that is only the start,” stated Aadit Palicha, Co-founder and CEO of Zepto.
This fundraise in the course of the deepest downturn in capital markets in over a decade validates Zepto’s working self-discipline.
Zepto’s burn has lowered considerably and with this, the corporate can be totally EBITDA optimistic in 12 to fifteen months.
The corporate has grown its gross sales by 300 per cent (year-on-year) and can probably obtain $1 billion in annualised gross sales inside the subsequent few quarters.
“Even with this capital, we need to keep our self-discipline, keep away from complacency, and push onerous to hit EBITDA positivity,” stated Kaivalya Vohra, Co-founder and CTO.
Headquartered in Mumbai, Zepto delivers greater than 6,000 grocery merchandise in 10 minutes via a community of supply hubs throughout the nation.
In the meantime, India didn’t see any new unicorn within the first half of 2023 as startup funding plunged greater than 70 per cent within the January-June interval from a 12 months in the past.
The primary six months witnessed Indian startups elevate simply $5.48 billion, from $19.5 billion they raised throughout the identical interval final 12 months, in keeping with knowledge by market intelligence agency Tracxn.