BENGALURU: Online grocery delivery start-up Zepto has finally ended the country's unicorn drought. The company raised $200 million in Series E fundraise, valuing it at $1.4 billion, and this is the first start-up to join the unicorn club in 2023. This fundraiser brought in new investors onto the cap table with US StepStone Group leading the round.
This is the first direct investment for US-headquartered StepStone in an Indian company. Goodwater Capital, a consumer-focused venture capital firm based in California also joined the round as a new investor.
Existing investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, Lachy Groom and more, have doubled down on the start-up. Zepto is also planning to go public by 2025.
The Indian start-up ecosystem faced a challenging first seven months of 2023 as the total funding- $5.5 billion in H1, declined by over 72% compared to H1 2022.
In May 2022, Zepto raised $200 million in a Series D round, valuing the start-up at around $900 million.
Zepto has turned the majority of its dark stores fully EBITDA positive. The start-up’s burn has reduced significantly, and it expects to be fully EBITDA positive in 12 to 15 months. The company has grown its sales by 300% Year-on-Year and will likely achieve $1 billion in Annualized Sales within the next few quarters.
Founded in 2021 by Stanford University dropouts Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto has delivered over 6,000 grocery products in 10 minutes through a network of delivery hubs across the country.
Aadit Palicha, Co-founder and CEO of Zepto, said, “This business is about execution and we are succeeding because our execution is strong."
Kaivalya Vohra, Co-founder and CTO of Zepto said, “Even with this capital, we want to maintain our discipline, avoid complacency, and push hard to hit EBITDA positivity. In that journey, the biggest drivers of P&L improvement for us are based on technology and product."
ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2023 was recently launched, and according to the report, Zepto co-founder Kaivalya Vohra is the youngest co-founder in the Index.