BigBasket Just Got Bigger: Joins The Unicorn Club With Fresh Funding Of $150 Million

Joining a soaring list of Indian unicorn startups, the Hari Menon-led BigBasket secured $150 million in its Series F funding round at a valuation of a little over $1.2 billion.

Extant and largest shareholder Alibaba will be investing $50 million, while Mirae Asset will put in $59.9 million and UK government-owned CDC Group will invest $40 million into the company, reports Economic Times.

Last year, BigBasket’s valuation touched $950 million after it raised $300 million in funds from Alibaba and others. With the latest fund-raise, the company now aspires to add thrust to its expansion plans, and to maintain leadership in grocery e-tailing business against the likes of Amazon's Pantry and Gurgaon-based online grocery platform Grofers.

For the 2018 fiscal, revenue at BigBasket’s wholesale arm, Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private Ltd, increased by 35 per cent to Rs 1,606 crore, while losses narrowed by 53 per cent to Rs 310 crore. The company’s retail arm, Innovative Retail, also saw a 29 per cent increase in its revenue to Rs 1,410 crore, while losses narrowed to Rs 179 crore in fiscal 2018 from Rs 191 crore a year earlier.

Earlier this month, Gurgaon-based logistics startup, Delhivery, became the first unicorn of 2019, with a valuation of $1.6 billion, after raising $395 million in its Series F round led by SoftBank and existing investors Carlyle Group and Fosun International.