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Online grocery shopping is fast gaining popularity among the Indians. According to the recent Redseer report, India's online grocery retail market is all set to touch $10.5 billion by 2023. A company that holds a huge share in this fast-growing market is BigBasket.
Founded in 2011, by the dot-com bubble survivors - V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, and Abhinay Choudhari, Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd., trading as BigBasket, is a household name soon after it came to existence.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, BigBasket is currently known as India's largest online grocer that receives over 150,000 orders per day.
With the recent deal, Tata Group became the owner of BigBasket by acquiring a majority stake of 64% in the company. BigBasket's valuation rocketed to around $1.85 billion, as of May 2021.
Read About BigBasket Company Profile, Story, Founders, Competitors, Business Model, Revenue, Funding, Acquisitions, and more.
BigBasket Company Details
| Startup Name | BigBasket |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bangalore |
| Founders | V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh & Abhinay Choudhari |
| Industry | E-commerce, Grocery, Grocery Delivery |
| Founded | October 2011 |
| Revenue | $502.47 mn (Rs 3818.20 crore in FY20) |
| Total Funding | $1.1 Billion (November 2021) |
| Valuation | $2 Billion+ |
| Parent Organization | Tata Digital Limited |
| Website | bigbasket.com |
BigBasket - Latest News
The Rise of BigBasket
BigBasket - About
BigBasket - Founders and Team
BigBasket - Startup Story | How BigBasket Started
BigBasket - Name, Tagline and Logo
BigBasket - User Acquisition
BigBasket - Business and Revenue Model
BigBasket - Startup Challenges
BigBasket - Competitors
BigBasket - Funding and Investors
BigBasket - Acquisitions
BigBasket - Growth / Revenue
BigBasket - Awards and Recognitions
BigBasket - Partnerships
BigBasket - Future Plans
BigBasket - FAQs
Rishabh Rathi
BigBasket - Latest News
November 25, 2021 - RainCan (now known as BBDaily) co-founders, Abhijeet Kumar and Munendra Singh, take an exit in order to start a new venture. This new startup is rumored to help others digitize.
November 24, 2021 - BigBasket opens its first brick-and-mortar store to enter the offline retail market, plans for 800 more in 5 years, and clock Rs 12,000 crore in sales.
October 28, 2021 - BigBasket opens its Fresho, which is launched as the first physical store of the company.
October 4, 2021 - BigBasket is working on BBNow, which will be launching as a quick commerce product of the brand, and will focus on quick grocery delivery.
August 7, 2021 - BigBasket co-founder, Abhinay Choudhari quietly exits the company on August 5, 2021, to continue with his entrepreneurial journey.
May 28, 2021 - Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in BigBasket, putting the Indian conglomerate in a direct race with e-commerce players Amazon, Walmart, Flipkart, and Reliance Industries. The stake was bought by Tata Digital Limited, a unit of Tata Sons. India's antitrust body had in March approved the acquisition of up to a 64.3% stake in BigBasket by Tata Digital.
Commission approves acquisition of Avana Logistek, Transworld Feeders and Transworld Feeders FZCO by Unifeeder pic.twitter.com/fb5lctA93K
— CCI (@CCI_India) June 3, 2021
The Rise of BigBasket
BigBasket - About
BigBasket is into delivering everyday cooking essentials like ghee (clarified butter), diced coconut, fragrant basmati rice, and more, amounting to a total of over 40,000 items, along with other household products ranging from bread to laundry detergents for the customers to shop from. The company gets all of them delivered at their doorstep. The target motive of the company is to enable the ease of grocery shopping online to avoid traffic and the drudgery of supermarket visits.
To explore new opportunities, the company has also launched 3 new businesses - BB Daily, BB Instant, and BB Beauty.
BBDaily is a subscription-based service that allows customers to order milk and fresh groceries. With this platform, the customers have to place the order before 10 PM, and they eventually get the goods delivered between 5 AM - 7 AM the next day.
BB Instant is BigBasket's unmanned vending machines that are mostly available in corporate offices, tech parks, and apartment buildings in Tier I cities.
While BB Beauty allows the consumers to choose from a wide range of beauty and personal care products and order online.
BigBasket has recently launched its first physical store, "Fresho" in Bangalore, in the last week of October 2021, as confirmed via an internal company email. The mentioned store has been open to the customers of Bangalore's Basaveshwar Nagar since October 25, 2021, according to BigBasket co-founder VS Sudhakar, who informed the same to all the employees of the company. While writing about Fresho in his email, Sudhakar described the opening of the store, which is currently operational from 8 in the morning to 9 in the night, as an “extremely key, strategic initiative.”
BigBasket - Founders and Team
BigBasket was founded by V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, and Abhinay Choudhari in 2011. Prior to BigBasket, the founders also founded Fabmart.com, an online platform that sold books, toys, and groceries in the year 1999. Fabmart was sold to a grocery chain in 2006.
V.S. Sudhakar
BigBasket Co-founder V S Sudhakar was the CEO of Planetasia. He has vast experience of working in the IT sector.
Hari Menon
BigBasket CEO Hari Menon comes with vast experience in diverse fields. Prior to Big Basket, Menon was the CEO of Indiaskills, the Vocational Education joint venture of Manipal Group with City & Guilds, UK. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, Hari Menon also worked as the Country Head at Planetasia, one of India’s first Internet services businesses. Hari also held top positions with IT majors like Wipro Infotech.
V.S. Ramesh
V.S. Ramesh is the Head of Logistics & Supply Chain at BigBasket. An Electronics Engineering graduate from Karnataka University, V.S. Ramesh has over 21 years of experience in the Indian Navy handling Operations and Logistics. Ramesh is an Electronics Engineer, who earlier co-founded Fabmall.
Vipul Parekh
Vipul Parekh is the Head of Finance & Marketing at BigBasket. Vipul is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and worked with a range of companies holding key leadership positions including Wipro Limited and Trinethra Super Retail Ltd. He also worked with Peepul Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd., a leading Private Equity Fund as an Investment Director. Parekh also co-founded Fabmall before co-founding BigBasket.
Abhinay Choudhari
Abhinay Choudhari was the Head of New Initiatives at BigBasket along with being a Co-founder. Abhinay is an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus. Besides working with leading IT companies like iGATE & Infosys, Abhinay also founded Stylecountry.com, one of India's first online fashion retail stores. Stylecountry.com had to be closed down as it did not turn out to be profitable.
Abhinay Choudhari has taken a silent exit from BigBasket on August 5, 2021. Soon after Tata acquired BigBasket in May 2021, Abhinay decided not to continue working in the same firm, which he finally managed to do in August. As a parting note to his employees, Choudhari has mentioned that he left BigBasket because only to build another company from scratch due to "the start-up itch" that has been growing in him after nine years. Choudhari hinted to “solve another equally painful chore for many Indian households” in the form of the new business that he will found. Next, he will be looking forward to an online laundry business, as per reports.
RainCan, which was originally a daily essential subscription-based startup, later acquired by Big Basket in 2018, was eventually rebranded as BBDaily. The co-founders of the company, however, remained with the BigBasket team so far till November 25, 2021, when Abhijeet Kumar and Munendra Singh finally chose to exit the Tata-owned company in order to start with their own venture. As per sources close to the deal, the new startup that will be founded by RainCan duo will help other startups digitize.
BigBasket currently boasts of being a 5000+ strong company.
BigBasket - Startup Story | How BigBasket Started
All of this began when the BigBasket founders decided to exploit the experience they got post the massive failure of the dot com bubble. Hence, they decided to create a unique website that was never done before. All the founders of Big Basket had garnered relevant experiences in e-commerce when they had created Fabmart.com.
Fabmart.com was an online platform that sold books, toys, and groceries in the year 1999. Back then, only within a few months, they had realized that not just our country but the whole world was not ready to take this buzz of digitization. In the year 2006, Fabmart was merged with a brick and mortar grocery chain and the founders ended up selling their startup for a lump sum amount.
Then came the golden year of 2011, when the team reunited and started re-evaluating the idea of again coming up with something new and exciting. Despite all the criticism they had received back in 1999, they stood very strong on the fact that the time to do something that’d put them on the map was then. In 2011, the smartphone market was booming and anything and everything was available except groceries, of course, and that right then was their Eureka moment.
BigBasket used to fulfill its orders by purchasing products from Metro Cash and Carry stores, prior to setting up its first warehouse.
"We had people in the Metro stores, literally operating that as our warehouse" says Hari Menon, Co-founder & CEO of BigBasket.
BigBasket - Name, Tagline and Logo
Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd., trades as "BigBasket," the name of which is drawn from the idea of shopping baskets, which the company extends to their customers online.
The recent tagline of the brand reflects as "Har Din Sasta."
BigBasket - User Acquisition
BigBasket's mobile app is currently accessed by over 6 million customers across the country, being operational in 26+ cities in India.
An interesting strategy that BigBasket follows to attract customers is that the company keeps into account the varied needs and different shopping habits of its customers belonging to different cities. The amount of attention the founders paid to little details put them in a competitively better position.
The team did their planning city-wise. They increased the leafy greens numbers in Mumbai, supplied a special kind of rice (called Sona Masoori) in Bangalore, and went as far as providing eight different kinds of eggplants to picky customers. All in all, the company ensured their quality was nothing short of perfection.
Timely delivery is the essence of online shopping hence the team put a focused approach to this. They devised a model of customized software that automatically guides drivers to their destinations and helps the company achieve a near-perfect on-time rate. Late deliveries earn customers a 10% discount. Missing items are refunded at a cost that is 50% of whatever the item cost is.
BigBasket - Business and Revenue Model
BigBasket’s private label business is driven by lower prices and higher margins. Roughly 35% of the revenue comes from private labels. The aim here is to fill the gap in distinct categories like organic food, high-end consumer products, to name a few. Also, the company offers a lower price point for staples and fruits and vegetables. They also provide idli/dosa batter on their online platform, which is very rare and does not have a lot of competition.
Moreover, on the B2B side, BigBasket serves its private-label to about a thousand Kirana stores, huge corporates, and HoReCa (hotels, restaurants, cafes). Regarding Big Basket's Business Model, Big Basket follows both the 'inventory model' and ‘hyper-local model’.
Under the inventory model, the company buys products from leading suppliers like P&G, HUL, mills, farmers, etc., store the products in warehouses, and supplies the same to the customers on order. In the case of the perishable goods, BigBasket further has tie-ups with local farmers and suppliers from whom it procures the goods as per orders and supplies the same to the customers.
Under the 'hyper-local model', BigBasket has tie-up with 2000+ grocery stores across India to deliver products within one hour from the neighborhood.
BigBasket is planning to launch its own quick commerce product named BBNow, which will be tentatively released by February 2022. The new qCommerce product will aim to deliver grocery products to the customers in 18-20 minutes within hyperlocal geography.
BBNow will be featured on Tata's upcoming superapp, TataNeu along with several other products of the brand including 1MG, Curefit, and more. The app is still in its development stage and though it will be designed to compete with Dunzo, Grofers, and Swiggy, being a rival in the same space, it will be integrated into the BigBasket platform and not be a spin-off.
‘BBNow’ is estimated to stock up the best-selling essentials, which add to around 2,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs). The app will utilize BigBasket’s existing dark stores network that is currently thriving across metropolitan cities, a source close to the company stated.
With the opening of its physical store, Fresho, BigBasket is also a step ahead in the physical grocery space, which is soon expected to be a revenue generator for the company.
BigBasket - Startup Challenges
One of the main challenges of any startup in India is getting the customers to try the service first since the resistance level is really high. This is followed by retaining these consumers despite all the other factors in the market like competitors, local vendors, and buying habits.
Also, since it was one of a kind startup dealing with groceries, which was never the case before, it took a while for the consumers to place trust in a brand like that and start using their services.
Shubham Kumar
BigBasket - Competitors
Despite growing at an increasing rate, BigBasket faces cut-throat competition in the market from Sequoia-backed PepperTap, and SoftBank-funded Grofers. Other major competitors of BigBasket are:
- Freshtohome
- Amazon
- Reliance Fresh
- Swiggy
- Zomato
Though these players are acquiring strong market standing with time, the company tends to stand fit and fine and win the market with its large and ever-increasing consumer base. BigBasket is now doubly strong under the management of Tata.
BigBasket - Funding and Investors
To date, BigBasket has raised a total of $1.1B in funding over 17 rounds. The latest funding of the company was raised on April 15, 2020, from a Debt Financing round.
Recently, the Commission of India approved Tata Digital's acquisition of BigBasket. Tata Group is believed to have acquired a 64.3% stake in the grocery delivery unicorn BigBasket. The deal is estimated to be $1.2 Billion, giving BigBasket a post-money valuation of over $2 Billion.
Here are the details of the funding raised by Big Basket to date -
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 15, 2020 | Debt Financing | $51.8 Million | Alibaba Group |
| April 9, 2020 | Venture Round | $60 Million | Alibaba Group |
| July 2019 | Debt Financing | $14 Million | Trifecta Capital |
| May 2019 | Series F | $150 Million | Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund |
| January 2019 | Venture Round | - | Growth Story |
| February 2018 | Series E | $300 Million | Alibaba Group |
| October 25, 2017 | Venture Round | $4.3 Million | Helion Ventures Partners |
| October 10, 2017 | Debt Financing | $838.1K | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| October 1, 2017 | Venture Round | $5 Million | Bessemer Venture Partners |
| September 2017 | Series E | $280 Million | Alibaba Group, Paytm Mall |
| March 2017 | Debt Financing | $6.9 Million | Trifecta Capital Advisors |
| March 2016 | Series D | $150 Million | Abraaj Group |
| August 2015 | Series C | $50 Million | Bessemer Venture Partners |
| September 2014 | Series B | $33 Million | Helion Venture Partners |
| April 2014 | Bridge Round | $3 Million | Singapore-based private investor |
| March 2012 | Series A | $10 Million | Ascent Capital |
BigBasket - Acquisitions
Big Basket has made 6 acquisitions to date. Their most recent acquisition was of Agrima Infotech, which the company acquired on February 19, 2022. The Tata owned-online grocery delivery platform has acquired the enterprise business segment of the Kerala-based deep tech company. This deal would allow the company to implement the unique computer vision technology platform, Psyight, at the self-checkout counters of the retail stores of BigBasket. Psyight behaves as a food recognition platform that is powered by the all-new computer vision technology to differentiate raw, cooked and packaged food items, which will help its parent ahead.
DailyNinja was last acquired startup by BigBasket and the deal was materialized on Mar 24, 2020.
In June 2015, the company acquired 'Delyver' , an online platform that connects offline retailers with customers in a neighborhood. In October 2018, Big Basket acquired 'Raincan' a subscription-based service provider for morning and breakfast essentials, headquartered in Pune. In October 2018 itself, Big Basket also acquired 'KWIK24' a company that manufactures and designs smart vending machines. On October 19, 2018, Big Basket announced the acquisition of the Bangalore-based startup 'Morning Cart'. Morning Cart is a daily essential ordering platform.
Here are the details of Acquisitions by BigBasket -
| Acquired | Date |
|---|---|
| Agrima Infotech | February 19, 2022 |
| DailyNinja | March 24, 2020 |
| Morning Cart | October 19, 2018 |
| KWIK24 | October 19, 2018 |
| Raincan | October 18, 2018 |
| Delyver | June 12, 2015 |
Shubham Kumar
BigBasket - Growth / Revenue
Bigbasket has recorded gross sales worth $1.1 billion (INR 8000 crore) in the financial year 2021. It reports 80% growth from the previous year and is expected to keep growing this way. Furthermore, BigBasket's revenue grew by 36%, from Rs 2,802.6 crore in FY19 to Rs 3818.2 crore in FY20.
However, its expenses also increased by 31%, from Rs 3,365.2 crore to Rs 4,411.3 crore during the same period. The company also reported a loss of Rs 709.9 crore in FY20, which increased by a 26% hike from Rs 562.6 crore, as reported in FY19.
Here are some growth highlights of Big Basket:
- Has a presence in over 26 cities of India.
- Serves more than 125 million customers all around the country.
- Endorsed by the most celebrated celebrity of Bollywood - Shah Rukh Khan.
- Bigbasket has generated Rs 3818.2 crore in revenue in FY20.
- Partnered with the Chinese brand - Alibaba.
- BigBasket forayed into the offline retail segment with Fresho, a technology-driven self-service store that the company first launched in Bengaluru in November 2021.
BigBasket - Awards and Recognitions
Among the major awards and recognitions that BigBasket won are:
- It was declared as the 'Retail and eCommerce app of the year' at YourStory's AWS Mobility Awards in 2017
- Owler has conferred upon BigBasket CEO Hari Menon the Top Rated CEO Award in 2017
- The company was placed 2nd at the Global E-commerce Award ceremony hosted by Ecommerce Europe in Barcelona
- BigBasket Co-founder Abhinay Choudhari was awarded with the IIMA Alumni Young Achievers’ Award
BigBasket - Partnerships
Some of the BigBasket partnerships include:
- Bigbasket has partnered with Uber on April 3, 2020, where Uber's driver-partners sought an association with the former to help the company deliver everyday essentials to its customers and others during the pandemic onslaught. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, and Noida were the first four cities to witness the same.
- BigBasket partnered with Rajasthan Royals on September 16, 2020, who was declared as the official partner of the IPL team for the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League.
- BigBasket also became partners with the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise on October 19, 2021, to deliver food products and groceries in India.
BigBasket - Future Plans
BigBasket has strong plans of retaining its post as the largest grocery delivery platform in India. So, the plan is to set up warehouses in all the 26 operating cities of India to bring down the delivery time to 3 hours.
By 2022, the plan is to grow to 60,000 SKUs and double the farmer base to 5,000. Further, the plan also includes expanding BigBasket’s private label range by using Alibaba’s muscle to source and import a range of merchandise to six times that of large-format supermarkets.
Big Basket has launched Fresho stores, and opened the first of their kinds in Bengaluru, thereby entering the offline retail market. The founder and CEO of BigBasket, Hari Menon has disclosed the plans of the company for opening 800 more of these stores in the next 5 years across 10 Tier 1 cities, and clock in Rs 12,000 crore in sales.
BigBasket - FAQs
Which is BigBasket origin country?
Big basket was originated in India.
Is BigBasket a Chinese company?
BigBasket is an Indian company but has Chinese investors like Alibaba Group and TR Capital. Online grocery retailer BigBasket has so far received greater than $250 million from Chinese companies. It recently received funding of close to $50 million from Alibaba.
Who is owner/founder of BigBasket?
BigBasket was founded by V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Choudhari.
Does BigBasket have offline stores?
No, it is a purely internet-based company and does not have any brick-and-mortar stores.
What is Bigbasket Wallet?
The Bigbasket Wallet is a pre-paid credit account that is associated with your Bigbasket account. This prepaid account allows you to pay a lump sum amount once to Bigbasket and then shop multiple times without having to pay each time.
Source :- https://startuptalky.com/ Author :- Chayanika Goswami Date :-February 21, 2022 at 12:32PM