Bengaluru-based hyperlocal grocery delivery company bigbasket has raised a massive US $300 million Series E funding round led by Chinese conglomerate Alibaba, others.
Alibaba contributed around 75 per cent (around US $225 million) of the total funding while existing investors Abraaj, International Finance Corporation and Sands Capital accounted for the rest.
The investment values the company at US $950 million – just US $50 million under the US $1 billion valuation that would have earned it tech unicorn status.
The company will deploy the funds into building farmer networks, warehouses and delivery infrastructure with a goal to penetrate deeper into the more than two dozen cities it currently operates in.
Alibaba owns 14,60,000 shares of the Bengaluru-based company which is registered as Supermarket Grocery Supplies.
bigbasket was founded in December 2011 by VS Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh and Abhinay Choudhari. Servicing over 6 million registered customers, bigbasket currently offers about 20,000 products from over 1,000 brands and has presence in 26 cities across the country.