BENGALURU: Online grocery delivery start-up Zepto has finally ended the country’s unicorn drought. The company raised $200 million in Series-E funding, valued 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 the 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.
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. Zepto is also planning to go public by 2025.
“We don’t plan to raise another fund in the near future, and we will be utilizing this fund to solidify our presence in existing markets and expand to select new markets,” Aadit Palicha told this newspaper.
He added that they are focusing on turning their stores profitable and maintaining their solid execution excellence.“Majority of our stores are already generating cash. We are proud of the solid, industry-best tech stack that we have at Zepto. We continue to power efficiencies at the back of it,” the founder added.
Indian start-up ecosystem faced a challenging first seven months of 2023 as total funding- $5.5 billion in H1, fell by over 72% compared to H1 2022. A total of 21 start-ups turned unicorns in 2022. Of the total, 18 of them turned unicorns during the first six months of 2022