Zepto helped pioneer quick commerce in India—now its cofounders aim to take market share from bigger rivals.
When 19-year-olds Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra gave up places at Stanford University and pitched an Indian grocery service that promised 10-minute deliveries, potential investors laughed. Unfazed, the duo—who were featured on 2022’s 30 Under 30 Asia list—launched Zepto in 2021. Fast forward three years and they are the third-largest quick commerce player in India by gross merchandise value, dispatching 500,000 items a day in ten cities through 40,000 delivery partners, and have branched out from groceries into everything from toys to trousers.
The next test will be to eat into the markets of its main competitors, Blinkit and Instamart. “The toughest challenge is to keep the rigor going,” says Vohra, the company’s chief technology officer. To fund its expansion plans, the Mumbai-based company has raised $550 million from a marquee list of investors, including U.S.-based startup accelerator Y Combinator and venture capital firm Goodwater Capital, with the latest round valuing the company at $1.4 billion. An IPO is also on the cards in the next 18 to 24 months.
While the pandemic fueled the delivery industry in India, Zepto helped create the quick-commerce segment, which is expected to grow to $10 billion in sales by 2029 from $3.3 billion this year, according to the German data firm Statista. CEO Palicha says Zepto’s revenue will hit an estimated 50.6 billion rupees ($610 million) for the year ended March 31, up 150% from the year before. He also expects Zepto to post an operating profit for the first time in the next few months after a loss of 12.7 billion rupees ($155 million) in fiscal 2023. “The core business is on a roll,” he adds. “We want to expand both in terms of geographies and in terms of categories.”
Zepto
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Zepto, which says it gets 95% of its orders from repeat customers, is planning expansion to smaller cities such as Jaipur and Surat in the next few months, after building a base in major urban centers such as Delhi and Mumbai. It has also introduced its own product range under meat and seafood brand Relish, notching 1.5 billion rupees in sales since its launch in late 2023. Other initiatives include Zepto Café service, which delivers hot beverages and snacks, while new loyalty program Zepto Pass has signed up 4 million users since February.
The two founders met in third grade in Dubai and grew into a natural team. In 2020, they were both accepted to Stanford University and planned to study computer science. But when all classes were made virtual because of the pandemic, the duo applied for gap years. Holed up in Vohra’s family home in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri, they realized that elderly neighbors were struggling to get daily necessities. That led to the idea for KiranaKart, a hyper-local delivery service from mom-and-pop stores known as kiranas. They pounded the pavements of Mumbai every day for three months pitching their app to local stores—learning valuable lessons in product and inventory management, demand forecasting and delivery delays. “Our parents wanted us to shut down the company and go to Stanford,” recalls Vohra.
Aadit Palicha (front) and Kaivalya Vohra
PHOTO BY MEXY XAVIER
Instead, they gave up their Stanford places and joined California startup accelerator Y Combinator’s entrepreneurship program from January to March 2021. A month later they founded Zepto based on the premise that people needed fast grocery deliveries as never before. (A zeptosecond is the shortest unit of measurable time in physics.) They also realized that they were not getting rich doing deliveries: they had to control the entire supply chain and customer experience.
The key to fast deliveries is a network of 340 “dark stores” or warehouses near main residential areas that stock 6,000 of the most-ordered products. (Zepto wants to grow that to 10,000 in the coming months.) It keeps costs low by leasing spaces off the beaten path. Next comes fast fulfillment: orders are picked, packed, bagged and dispatched in under a minute. An army of delivery people on bicycles and motorbikes pick up orders and use routing tools that show real-time traffic conditions, and customers can track deliveries on their phones. The average distance from warehouse to front door is about 1.5 kilometers and the median delivery time is 11 minutes. “Customers don’t really care if 10 minutes become even 15 or 20 minutes,” says Arvind Singhal of Gurgaon-based retail consultancy Technopak, “since the platform does inform the customer at the time of placing the order about the estimated time of delivery.”
“The toughest challenge is to keep the rigor going.”
Quick commerce in India is an oligopoly of four players, according to a February report from Indian investment bank JM Financial. Zomato’s Blinkit is the clear leader with 46% market share in 2023 and annualized gross merchandise value (GMV) of 142 billion rupees. Swiggy’s Instamart is second with an estimated GMV of 83 billion rupees, followed by Zepto’s 65 billion rupees.Zepto has been grabbing market share from Swiggy, the report noted, and commands a fifth of the market. BBnow, run by Tata Group’s BigBasket, is fourth with an estimated GMV of between 20 and 25 billion rupees.
“Zepto needs to keep investing in its tech platform,” says Singhal of Technopak. “The competitive edge will be in a better user experience—the ease of using the platform and the ease of transacting.”
Palicha agrees that technology is essential. “We use forecasting algorithms to determine what products to stock up on, and automated refurbishment to ensure that the supplies are replenished,” he says. “Our wastage with regard to fresh fruits and veggies is the lowest in the industry.” A focus on higher value orders and reducing delivery costs by using electric two-wheelers and bicycles will also help drive profitability, he adds.
The founders, meanwhile, are prepped for the long haul. “There’s still a lot of work to be done,” says Vohra, “and a lot of expansion to happen.”
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