Google-funded local delivery app Dunzo picks up ₹5 crore in investment

Key Highlights

Centrum’s PE fund has invested ₹5 crore in the local delivery app Dunzo.

The company which boasts of completing almost 1 million orders in the month of March 2019, plans to use the raised capital for expanding their operations in other cities such as Delhi, Pune, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Chennai.

CEO of Kalpavrisksh fund, Giri Krishnaswamy will also be joining Dunzo’s board as a part of this deal.

Related : Zomato in talks to acquire on demand service provider Dunzo

Centrum’s PE fund has invested ₹5 crore in the local delivery app Dunzo. Dunzo is a smartphone based concierge service provider that is backed by Google. It connects consumers with relevant delivery partners. The app provides services like grocery shopping, delivering medical supplies, food delivery to its users.

The company which boasts of completing almost 1 million orders in the month of March 2019, plans to use the raised capital for expanding their operations in other cities such as Delhi, Pune, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Chennai. They are also hoping to increase their profits in these markets. CEO of Kalpavrisksh fund, Giri Krishnaswamy will also be joining Dunzo’s board as a part of this deal.

This is the second time a company has invested In Dunzo in 2019. Earlier, the company had raised ₹3 crore from Makemytrip and ₹22.49 crore in a series C funding round in which several reverent investors participated. It is also reported that the company is looking out to woo new investors and raising an approximate capital of $50 million. Dunzo is looking to raise as much as capital as it can so as to be able to compete in the highly competitive local delivery market. Companies like Swiggy especially pose a serious competition to it.

Related : Dunzo A Google-Backed Startup In The Final Stage Of $20 Million Funding

Kalpavrisksh fund is happy to invest in Dunzo as they believe in Dunzo’s ability to provide cost-effective logistics services. Dunzo aims to do so by managing capacity utilization all around the clock. The CEO of Kalpavrisksh fund, said that they continue to invest in niche businesses that have a different business model and create brand equity. They are also interested in businesses that have the potential to grow rapidly. Other investments of Kalpavrisksh fund include the label life, the HEAL institute and Littlemore innovation labs among others.

Dunzo was started in 2014 by Makund Jha, Ankur Agarwal and Dalvir Suri. It had initially started as a minuscule whatsapp group and has now grown into a hyperlocal smart phine based delivery service present in three other cities – Gurgaon, Pune and Hyderabad. In its initial days, Dunzo used to be used by its users to carry out small tasks in Bengaluru. Its core team was committed to keeping it functioning smoothly by assigning tasks and seeing to their completion. They also then reassigned the particular tasks to the next step. This personal attention to detail ensured that their customers were always highly satisfied and had a high level of trust in the app.

The company raised its first funding of $650k in March 2016 from Aspada Ventures, Blume Ventures and Rajan Anandan, who is the MD of Google India. In 2017, it received $12 million in investment from Google in a fresh funding round. This is also the first direct investment made by Google in the Indian market.

The company offers a wide range of services which include but are not limited to dry cleaning, photocopying and other mundane tasks. The app has also partnered with a variety of restaurants, medicals, pet shops, meat stores etc, products form which can be accessed via the Dunzo app and be delivered at your doorstep