BigBasket raises Rs 350 cr from holding firm as it takes on competitors

The online grocer plans to expand its footprint to 70 cities this fiscal year, from about 37 now.

Innovative Retail Concepts, which runs online grocer BigBasket, has received Rs 350 crore from holding company Supermarket Grocery Supplies, according to regulatory documents sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler.

The investment was approved on May 24 this year and the company allotted 3.5 crore equity shares.

The funding is expected to help Tata Digital-owned BigBasket compete with Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart, and Reliance’s JioMart for a share in the online grocery and food market, which is expected to become a $790 billion market size by 2024 from $603 billion in 2019, according to analysts.

BigBasket recently said that it expects gross merchandise value (GMV) on its platform to grow by 30 per cent to Rs 13,000 crore in the current fiscal with a push from its quick commerce business and expansion of presence across the country.

Hari Menon, BigBasket’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said the company will scale up offline stores from 90 to 695 in a year to reach out to 100 per cent of its customer base. It had posted GMV of around Rs 10,000 crore in 2021-22.

The company is scaling up the number of stores to reach out to 100 per cent of its customers. It had about 90 stores and it has a plan to scale them up to about 695 stores by the end of the year. This will give us a hundred per cent coverage of all its existing customers. The firm plans to expand its footprint to 70 cities this fiscal year, from about 37 now.

Tata Digital, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons, last year in May acquired a majority stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies. It committed an investment of $219 million in BigBasket, according to the regulatory filings.