{"id":199362,"date":"2025-10-16T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/16\/zepto-raises-450-million-at-7-billion-valuation-as-indian-quick-commerce-market-heats-up-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T10:12:11","slug":"zepto-raises-450-million-at-7-billion-valuation-as-indian-quick-commerce-market-heats-up-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/16\/zepto-raises-450-million-at-7-billion-valuation-as-indian-quick-commerce-market-heats-up-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Zepto raises $450 million at $7 billion valuation as Indian quick commerce market heats up | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indian quick commerce startup Zepto said it has raised $400 million in a funding round led by a new investor, California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System (CalPERS), a U.S.-based pension fund. The round, which is a mix of primary and secondary investment, also has participation from existing investors, including Avenir, Avra, Lightspeed, Glade Brook, The Stepstone Group, and Nexus Venture Partners. After this funding, the company plans to go public next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zepto competes with other quick commerce players such as Eternal\u2019s (formerly Zomato) BlinkIt, Swiggy Instamart, and Tata-owned BigBasket \u2014 all part of publicly listed companies. The startup has been on a funding spree as it picked up <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/11\/21\/zepto-raises-another-350-million-amid-retail-upheaval-in-india\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.3 billion in a span of several months last year<\/a>. Since Zepto\u2019s last funding round in November 2024, Swiggy made <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/11\/12\/swiggy-debut-fuels-indias-food-quick-commerce-wars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">its public debut on India\u2019s stock exchange<\/a>, and Blinkit <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moneycontrol.com\/news\/business\/startup\/eternal-q1-blinkit-overtakes-zomato-s-food-delivery-biz-in-order-value-for-the-first-time-13304637.html\" target=\"_blank\">surpassed Zomato<\/a> in gross order value (the total value of customer orders) for Q1 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company also faces competition from legacy ecommerce players such as <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/08\/05\/flipkart-blitzes-into-india-10-minute-quick-commerce-battle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flipkart<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/12\/10\/amazon-pilots-quick-commerce-service-in-india\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amazon<\/a>, which have started their own quick commerce delivery services. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Startups are also looking at verticalized e-commerce offerings. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/m.economictimes.com\/tech\/funding\/food-delivery-startup-swish-raises-2-million-in-maiden-round-led-by-vc-firm-accel\/articleshow\/115425695.cms\" target=\"_blank\">Accel-backed Swish<\/a> and Zing are operating in the food delivery space; <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/09\/16\/myntra-bets-on-4-hour-delivery-amid-indias-quick-commerce-boom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">publicly listed Nykaa<\/a>, Flipkart-owned Myntra, Silkk, and Blip want to deliver apparel to customers in an hour; <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/28\/lightspeed-backs-indian-home-services-startup-snabbit-as-the-next-big-consumer-trend\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lightspeed-backed Snabbit<\/a> is allowing users to book home services like cleaning within 10 minutes; and startups like FirstClub are taking <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/03\/firstclub-bucks-indias-speed-obsession-quickly-triples-valuation-to-120m-with-premium-approach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a curation approach to grocery delivery<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zepto and CEO Aadit Palicha are confident about the startup\u2019s growth. Palicha said that the company has scaled from 500,000 daily orders five quarters ago to 1.7 million daily orders and predicted that the growth will continue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BlinkIt, Instamart, and Zepto operate in many of these spaces, with food delivery being the most notable one. However, Zepto had to pause its <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moneycontrol.com\/news\/business\/startup\/zepto-cafe-pauses-operations-in-44-stores-across-north-india-due-to-supply-and-staff-crunch-13043784.html\" target=\"_blank\">Zepto Cafe offering in 44 cities due to staff challenges<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Signs for the quick commerce market are encouraging in India. Morgan Stanley predicts the quick commerce market could reach $42 billion by 2030. Bernstein said in a note in March that it could reach $100 billion in a decade.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zepto has largely concentrated on major cities in India in terms of expanding services. J.P. Morgan noted earlier this month that BlinkIt has its dark store network of warehouses to fulfill online orders in more than 204 cities, compared to Swiggy Instamart in over 104, and Zepto in over 80 cities in India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The investment is a notable one for CalPERS. The pension fund typically invests in venture capital through intermediary funds rather than leading direct investments in startups. CalPERS has been aggressively expanding its venture exposure since 2022 after what officials called a \u201clost decade\u201d of underperformance, scaling its venture allocation from around $800 million to a targeted $5 billion. The fund\u2019s decision to lead a round in an Indian quick-commerce startup seemingly signals strong institutional confidence in India\u2019s rapid delivery sector and perhaps CalPERS\u2019 growing appetite for direct venture investments in emerging markets, too. Notably, CalPERS is also an investor in funds of Zepto\u2019s existing backers, like Lightspeed and General Catalyst.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/10\/16\/zepto-raises-450-million-at-7-billion-valuation-as-indian-quick-commerce-market-heats-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian quick commerce startup Zepto said it has raised $400 million in a funding round led by a new investor, California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System (CalPERS), a U.S.-based pension fund. The round, which is a mix of primary and secondary investment, also has participation from existing investors, including Avenir, Avra, Lightspeed, Glade Brook, The Stepstone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-199362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}