On demand grocery delivery startup PepperTap is close to finalising a new round of funding from investors including Delhi-based etailer Snapdeal in a deal expected to close next week.
The Gurgaon-based startup, which already counts venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners as existing investors, could raise $12-$15 million from New Delhi-headquartered Snapdeal as part of its new round of funding, said two sources familiar with the development. Founded by former e-commerce logistics company Delhivery executives Navneet Singh and Milind Sharma in November 2014, PepperTap has been in talks with investors over the last few months to close the round which is pegged at $30-50 million, said sources familiar with the matter.
It is also in talks with two or three other investors who may invest in the round as well, said these sources. Email queries sent to Snapdeal and PepperTap did not elicit a response at the time of filing this article.
The interest of Snapdeal comes at a time when both hyperlocal delivery and groceries segments are becoming an important part of the e-tailing market. The online marketplace has said that it plans to spend up to $300 million to strengthen its supply chain, and has also picked up a minority stake in GoJavas, an e-commerce focused logistics firm, earlier this year.
The decision to invest in PepperTap also comes at a time when Snapdeal is making an ambitious bid to build a complete ecommerce-focused ecosystem of goods and services, a model that closely mimics The Alibaba Group, also an investor in the country’s largest online marketplace. Earlier this year, Kunal Bahl, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, had told ET that it could make up to 12 investments by the end of the current fiscal.
“The India internet landscape is evolving into a hyper-local and on-demand market. Key reasons for this are the lack of infrastructure, significantly diverse demographics — culturally, geographically, and economically — and relatively lower per capita incomes,” said a Goldman Sachs report earlier this year which expects etailing market to reach $47 billion by 2020.
PepperTap expanded from 2 to 10 cities last month and Singh told ET that it handles about 13,000 orders a day.