Gurgaon-based hyperlocal startup PepperTap raises $10 M funding from Sequoia and SAIF Partners

Venture capitals seems to be hyperactive as far as hyper-local is concerned. Just within hours of Grofers funding, mobile centric hyperlocal grocery delivery service PepperTap has raised $10 million from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital. The funding will be leveraged for building a highly-skilled team that is in sync with global standards and for expanding the reach of PepperTap to 10 more cities in the country by the end of the year.

Imortantly, this is the third funding in hyperlocal market within a week. Earlier Bangalore based Zopnow had raised funding followed by Grofers $35 million round led by Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital.

The funding will be leveraged for building a highly-skilled team that is in sync with global standards and for expanding the reach of PepperTap to 10 more cities in the country by the end of the year.

Launched in November 2014, PepperTap offers a wide-range of groceries and daily-need products through apps. Currently PepperTap offers more than 15,000 SKUs across categories including Staples, food & dairy products, household items, fresh fruits & vegetables etc. Consumers can place their orders through a mobile app and deliveries are made in a span of two hours, making it one of the fastest services of its kind.

Navneet Singh, Co-founder, PepperTap commented,

Our sole focus is to build the best grocery and fresh product-buying experience for our customers. Through our unique business model, we are able to provide delight for our customers, increase sales for our partner stores; and create a concrete and sustainable business for our shareholders. Participation by quality funds like SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital in our Series A funding establishes the fact that we are endeavoring to create a niche place for ourselves in the market. This investment will help us iron out any chinks in our armor, and build on our strengths to take our business from a single-city operation to a pan-India scale.

In February this year PepperTap had raised close to $2 million of seed funding from Sequoia Capital. PepperTap claims to deliver within two hours anywhere in Gurgaon while Grofers does it in 90 minutes.

Currently PepperTap accepts only Cash on Delivery payment option but going forward it plans to launch plastic card based payment options. The brainchild of Navneet and Milind Sharma PepperTap started in millenium city and with this round it’s eyeing to extend presence in 10 more cities. Prior to PepperTap the duo established premier e-commerce focussed reverse logistics company. They also had stints at ecommerce focused logistic company – Delhivery.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors said,

We agreed to invest in Peppertap even before the name was finalized, and before the first engineer was hired. We liked Navneet so much and had such great chemistry that we felt we could partner with him to solve a very tough problem in a very large market. So we agreed to launch a grocery delivery business with him. A few months later, Navneet and team have far surpassed our expectations. We are delighted to co-lead the Series A with SAIF Partners and work with them to help make PepperTap a leading mobile commerce company in India.

Unlike other verticals online grocery space didn’t attract VCs interest in galore but things have been changing with Bigbasket, Localbanya and ZopNow, Grofers and Peppertap are raising round after round and scaling fast with venture backing. This year seems to be roller-coaster ride for hyper-local plays and VCs are fearlesslely parking their wealth in the above startups.

Besides startups biggies like Amazon launched a new service in India called Kirana Now. Kirana Now is a platform that aims at quick delivery (2 to 4 hours) of consumer need products from the neighbourhood store. Hyperlocal market is going through an interesting phase and 2015 seems to be a year for startups evangelizing hperlocal dreams. Also consolidation looks inevitable in hyperlocal space like other e-commerce verticals as we see same investors betting more than one startups.

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