Creating Success With Experienced Minds, Here Goes The Story Of BigBasket!
Online commerce platforms are possibly the best inventions ever. The fact that you can sit at your home, office, or any other place, and can scroll over your favourite products is a dream come true. While we all love shopping our favourite dresses, jewellery, households, and many other categories of products online, online grocery shopping is still a fascinating thought!
How can a basic necessity, like groceries with high perishability, have delivery services? Well, BigBasket has given a befitting answer to this question. From starting this daring thought to join the Unicorn club, BigBasket's journey is the much-needed inspiration that one needs before persuading a bold business move. So, here we bring you the startup story of this perfect delivery service, BigBasket. Read Now!
The Beginning of Big Basket
Gone are the days when you were sorting time to buy groceries. Well, all thanks to BigBasket, online grocery shopping is altogether an easy task. An idea like BigBasket is ultimately what experienced minds can think of, and here is a similar story.
The five experienced founders of this platform, Hari Menon, V S Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and V S Ramesh, had their share of failures before they started this venture. The team encountered the first interaction with an online platform 'Fabmart' in 1999, shortly, the startup merged with a grocery chain, and by 2006 the founders sold it in a lump sum.
In 2011, the team thought of establishing something huge in the grocery industry and hence, came up with 'BigBasket'. The possible reason for launching at this time was to take full advantage of the then ongoing smartphone boom.
The Journey Of Being Unique
As soon as BigBasket launched, it raised about $10 million from Ascent Capital in the initial round of funding. Delivering fresh groceries was a massive challenge, so, in the first year, the founders used to visit a wholesale fruit and vegetable market at 3.30 a.m daily.
Gradually, BigBasket started with its refrigerated warehouses and a fleet of trucks to deliver the groceries. By 2014, the company was growing positively in three major cities, affirming over 5,000 orders every day.
With the advancement in both resources and demands, the company inaugurated LaunchExpress, a 90-minute delivery service for milk, eggs, bread, and other urgent supplies. Making most of its efforts, BigBasket raised around $290 million in some eight rounds of funding from around 11 investors in 2017.
From technology to warehouses, BigBasket invested in all sorts of solutions that differ it from competitors. After thorough research, the corporation also personalized the product availability with the different demand patterns across India. BigBasket has outdone its rivals with its expansion in multiple brand products.
The Forthcoming
With competitors like Amazon, Grofers, etc., BigBasket has stretched a pretty successful journey so far. The company made its way into the prestigious unicorn club in 2019. It has evolved the process of online grocery shopping with over 12,000 varieties of products of around 1000 different brands in about 25 cities. According to experts, BigBasket may value about $1.2 trillion in the future.
We are looking forward to what BigBasket has in store for all its users!
Want to start a business with zero investment? Visit us at Higgle to run a startup with zero investment!
Follow us on Instagram for the latest updates.