This is an archive article published on August 25, 2023

Zepto becomes India’s first unicorn in nearly a year in new funding round

Zepto said on Friday it has raised $200 million in fresh funding at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the first startup in the country to cross the billion-dollar valuation mark in nearly a year.

2 min readMumbaiAug 25, 2023 03:24 PM IST First published on: Aug 25, 2023 at 03:24 PM IST

Grocery startup Zepto said on Friday it has raised $200 million in fresh funding at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the first startup in the country to cross the billion-dollar valuation mark in nearly a year.

Zepto said it raised the funds “in the midst of the deepest downturn in capital markets in over a decade” from U.S-based investment firms StepStone Group and Goodwater Capital. Existing backers including Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital and Lachy Groom also participated in the deal.

Zepto, which promises delivery of groceries in 10 minutes, was started in 2021 by two 19-year-old Stanford dropouts, and competes with SoftBank-funded Swiggy and Blinkit, which are all betting on fast deliveries in the so-called quick commerce sector. Even among them, Zepto’s CEO Aadit Palicha said the company has the quickest average delivery time of 13 minutes.