SoftBank leads Rs 400 crore funding round in Grofers

Grofers, the Gurugram based grocery delivery firm, on Friday, raised Rs 400 crore (around $62 million) in a Series E round led by existing investor Japanese Internet conglomerate SoftBank.

In a statement, Grofers also said the funding round also saw other investors including Tiger  Global and Apoletto Asia. Total funds raised by the leading e-grocer thus stand at $226.5 million.

With this new Series E round, Grofers will continue to invest in building private labels and supply chain  improvements. A significant amount of investment will go towards building infrastructure and  technology and efficient supply chain management to achieve deeper penetration in existing Grofers  cities.

Commenting on the development, Grofers Co-Founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa said the fresh round by our existing investors is a  vote of confidence and trust in the turnaround at Grofers.

"We took some hard decisions to fix parts of the  business that were not scaling well. Our efforts have clearly contributed in making sure we have a clear  path to profitability as well as the largest market share in the online grocery segment; having grown  four-fold in the last one year for monthly sales in excess of Rs 100 crore," said Dhinsa.

Grofers, founded by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa in 2013,  currently clocks an average of 25,000 orders a day with an order value of Rs 1400.

The company has previously raised $166.5 million from investors like SoftBank, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global. Grofers also  raised fund from Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner among others. The company currently has 25 warehouses consisting of 1.1 million square feet space.

The online grocer recently launched its  loyalty programme called Grofers Smart Bachat Club, which has already crossed 100,000 subscribers in 2
months.

Market analysts observe that overall online grocery  market in India is expected to move up the curve and touch $1 billion by this year compared to $600 million in  2016.