Dunzo, India’s Google-backed delivery startup, plans to double the amount of capital it has raised to expand across the country and become a $1 billion revenue business over the next two years, Bloomberg reported on Friday (April 9). Dunzo, which is based in Bengaluru, has reportedly raised $140 million and hopes to get another $150 million in investments this year.
“The expansion only really starts next year at full pace, so we’ll raise capital this year, but it gets deployed only next year,” Kabeer Biswas, Dunzo’s CEO, told Bloomberg.
Dunzo, which connects low-cost delivery personnel to individual merchants in eight cities in India, has gained popularity thanks to its quick delivery of everything from groceries to parcels in cities congested by traffic. Founded in 2014, Dunzo was initially a WhatsApp service before evolving into a delivery app, with people paying around $6 per order. The company may add two new cities to its roster this year, with the goal of hitting 20 urban centers by the middle of 2023. Dunzo has also begun to offer 15-minute deliveries of 2,000 commonly sought-after items.
“It’s tapping into growing internet usage and accessibility in India, where tech and consumer startups are flourishing as the number of smartphone users nears one billion,” Bloomberg noted. “eCommerce has been the quickest-growing channel for fast-moving consumer good products in recent years, and now accounts for about 5 percent of all such sales.”
As PYMNTS reported in January, Dunzo began the year by closing out a $40 million Series E funding round led by Google, Lightbox, Evolvence, Hana Financial Investment, LGT Lightstone Aspada, Alteria and others. Google’s collaboration with Dunzo began in May of last year, giving the search giant a chance to expand its market in India, and giving Dunzo the ability to offer customers the use of Google Pay, which has more than 67 million Indian users.
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