Unilever invests in online India grocery market

The Gurugram-based company will use the new capital to improve its technology, both the consumer-facing site and the back end, according to a statement. It will also expand its product offering, grow its customer base and seek new revenue streams, with an eye to expanding beyond its core market and becoming a leading Indian online grocery platform.

Milkbasket was founded in 2015 as a platform for ordering fresh milk and has since expanded to include a range of grocery products. The company delivers groceries to customers’ doorsteps every day before 7 a.m., aiming to replace their daily shopping trips.

Investors in Milkbasket include Blume Ventures and Lenovo Capital, which committed an undisclosed amount of funding last year, and EVC Ventures, which led a $500 million seed round in 2016.

Unilever Ventures was founded in 2002 and invests in early stage companies in the personal care sector, in addition to technology innovators in industries such as e-commerce, data analytics, internet of things, and artificial intelligence. The firm joined IDG Ventures India and Amazon Web Services last year to found an initiative aimed at supporting early-stage technology start-ups in India.

India’s online grocery market is dominated by BigBasket and Grofers, both of which have raised multiple rounds of VC funding. Both companies have moved away from the hyperlocal delivery model that they began with in the past year due to its inherent inefficiency, phasing in an inventory-led service that they hope will encourage customers to order all their shopping at once rather than placing a large number fo smaller orders.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Early-stage
• India
• TMT
• seed