Reliance Retail picks 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo

The largest retailer led a $240 million funding round in Dunzo, with participation from existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital.
Reliance Retail picks 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo

BENGALURU: Reliance Retail will enter the burgeoning quick commerce space with an investment of $200 million in Dunzo. It will own 25.8% stake in the quick commerce company.

The largest retailer led a $240 million funding round in Dunzo, with participation from existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital.

The capital will be used to further Dunzo’s vision to be the largest quick commerce business in the country while also expanding its B2B business, Reliance Retail said in a statement on Thursday. According to a RedSeer report, quick commerce has an addressable market opportunity of $50 billion in India.

Dunzo is the earliest entrant in the category and it competes with Zomato-backed Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart. Besides, Amazon, Walmart-backed Flipkart and BigBasket are also showing keen interest in this category.

Dunzo is backed by Google, Blume Ventures, Aspada Investments, Lightrock, LightBox Ventures, STIC Ventures, Alteria and 3L Capital. Dunzo and Reliance Retail will also enter into certain business partnerships.

Dunzo will enable hyper-local logistics for the retail stores operated by Reliance Retail, further adding onto Reliance Retail’s omni-channel capabilities. Dunzo will also facilitate last mile deliveries for JioMart’s merchant network.

Isha Ambani, Director, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited, said, “Through our partnership with Dunzo, we will be able to provide increased convenience to Reliance Retail’s consumers and differentiated customer experience through rapid delivery of products from Reliance Retail stores.”

In grocery consumption basket, Reliance Retail operates Reliance Fresh, Shree Kannan Departmental stores, SMART and Smart Point store formats.

With net profit of Rs 1,695 crore and consolidated gross revenue of Rs 45,426 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal, Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, operates 12,711 stores across 7,000 cities.

It also has a strong presence in digital commerce channels through AJIO.com. Dunzo is available across 7 metro cities in India and the additional capital will be used to expand to 15 cities.

Quick commerce

Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Caxpital also participated in a $240-million funding round in Dunzo

Dunzo is also backed by Google, Blume Ventures, Aspada Investments, and STIC Ventures

Tie up will enable hyper-local logistics for the retail stores operated by Reliance Retail

New partnership will also facilitate last mile deliveries for JioMart’s merchant network

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