Dunzo has raised $28 Mn in a funding round led by Google and Lightstone. The fresh funding has come after a $45 million Series D round in October 2019 and it is the first tranche of the company’s ongoing Series E round.
While Google LLC and Lightstone have already infused $15.65 million, the remaining amount would come from five existing investors, regulatory filings show.
Right off the bat, Dunzo has also been investing in its B2B business where it enables logistics for hyperlocal retailers. It’s also experimenting with dark stores to help local retailers fulfill customer orders quickly. At present, it runs 10 such stores in Bengaluru, Chennai, and Pune.
Dunzo has around 75,000 stores on the platform and the number of deliveries from FY19 to FY20 has grown 2.5-3X. The company was serving about 2.5 million deliveries before March, but the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the volume by 25%.
This round comes at a time when competition in the hyperlocal delivery segment has intensified with Naspers-backed Swiggy launching 45-minutes grocery delivery via Instamart.
The fresh capital infusion will help Dunzo to keep in the race of the high capital burn segment with competitors like Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, and Shadowfax among others.
Dunzo has also witnessed a lot of popularity in Delhi NCR, especially NCR, amidst COVID and since even before the lockdown.