BigBasket– Company Profile

Bigbasket is the largest online grocery supermarket in India. It was launched in 2011, quite about the time when e-commerce was in its nascent stage in the country. Bigbasket was founded by Hari Menon, VS Sudhakar, V S Ramesh, Vipul Parekhand Abhinay Choudhari. Bigbasket is headquartered in Bengaluru and delivers to various cities in India such as Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Noida, Mysore, Coimbatore, Vijayawada-Guntur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar, Lucknow-Kanpur, Gurgaon, Vadodara, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Nagpur, Patna, Indore and Chandigarh Tricity city limits.

Bigbasket was launched at a time when India’s busy workforce in cities was finding it difficult to allocate time to buy groceries and home essentials. Bigbasket gave them the flexibility to place their order anytime and get the things delivered at their preferred time. Bigbasket offers groceries and food supplies in various categories such as fruits & vegetables, food grains, oil, masalas, bakery items, beverages, branded foods, personal care products, household supplies, eggs, meat, fish, etc. Bigbasket currently offers more than 18,000 products across various categories and features more than 1000 brands in its catalogue. Bigbasket comes with the promise of lowest rates and prompt delivery services.

History:

Bigbasket was launched in 2011, but its journey had begun much earlier. It was in the year 1999 that a group of people comprising V S Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari and V S Ramesh launched their online retail business called Fabmart. The business did quite well and later physical retail malls called Fabmall were launched in various locations in South India. The business was eventually sold to the Aditya Birla Group and now it is known popularly as ‘More’ retail chain. However, the founders were itching to start something new and withtheirexperience in retail business, they came together once again to launch Bigbasket in 2011. Bigbasket currently has revenue of around $3.2 million and approximately 4,000 employees.

Funding:

Bigbasket has received funding worth around $526 million. The investors include Alibaba Group, Abraaj Group, Ascent Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Brand Capital, Helion Venture Partners, ICICI Venture, IFC Venture Capital Group, LionRock Capital, Paytm Mall, Sands Capital Management, Sands Capital Ventures, Trifecta Capital and Zodius Capital. There are talks about additional funding of around $200 million, post which, the company would be valued at around $900 million.

Acquisitions:

Bigbasket acquired Delyver in June 2015 for an undisclosed amount. Delyver was also an online grocery store and its specialty was using local stores to deliver groceries to people. Now, all business assets of Delyver have been merged with Bigbasket.

Competition:

Bigbasket competes with various other startups in the online grocery segment. Competitors include Grofers, Zopnow, Peppertap, Naturesbasket, Aaramshop, etc. Various city-specific online retail stores have also come up, which are giving tough competition to Bigbasket. Even bigger e-commerce players such as Amazon India and Snapdeal have also started selling groceries online, which is creating new challenges for Bigbasket.

About the Founders:

Hari Menon is the CEO of Bigbasket. He is an alumnus of BITS Pilani. V S Sudhakar is a cofounder and deals with senior management decisions at the organizational level. Vipul Parekh is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and heads the Finance & Marketing department. Abhinay Choudhari is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and he heads the new initiatives at Bigbasket.  V S Ramesh is an engineering graduate from Karnataka University and he heads logistics and supply chain at Bigbasket.