Due to fierce competition in the market, BigBasket, a fast commerce platform supported by Tata Digital, witnessed a decline in yearly income in the fiscal year that ended in March 2025. BigBasket’s B2C division, Innovative Retail Concepts, had a 3% decline in turnover from INR 7,885 Cr in FY24 to INR 7,673 Cr in FY25, according to Tata Sons’ annual report.
Revenue and Losses: BigBasket’s FY25 Financial Snapshot
Additionally, their net loss rose 46% from INR 1,267 Cr to INR 1,851 Cr the year before. Supermarket Grocery Supplies, BigBasket’s B2B division, had a more dramatic 7% decline in revenue from INR 2,391.8 Cr in FY24 to INR 2,227 Cr in the year under review. Its net loss, however, decreased by 20.2% from INR 128.1 Cr in the prior fiscal year to INR 102.2 Cr in FY25.
BigBasket was first established in 2011 as an Indian online grocery delivery service. Through its digital division, Tata Digital, the Tata Group purchased the majority of BigBasket in 2021. In order to meet the growing demand for quicker deliveries, BigBasket later changed its focus to quick commerce by developing BBNow, which aims to deliver groceries in urban areas in a matter of minutes.
BB Now Faces Off Against Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart
In the rapid commerce market, it is currently up against severe competition from companies like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart. The network of dark stores is being rapidly expanded by the three fast commerce majors.
Anish Srivastava, SVP of Blinkit, stated last week that he anticipates the number of rapid commerce dark establishments in the nation to increase to between 15,000 and 20,000 within the next two years. Older businesses, though, are vying for market share in this expanding industry.
Even though Reliance hasn’t had much success in the market thus far, it still uses Reliance Retail locations and opens dark stores. Amazon and Flipkart, two of the biggest online retailers, are also testing their fast commerce services across the nation.
Bigbasket’s wide range of private label products may provide it a competitive advantage over the rapid commerce heavyweights. With over 40% of sales coming from private label products like Fresho, BB Royal, and Tasties, BigBasket has made these brands the cornerstone of its business.
Essentials including staples, produce, meats, snacks, and even seasonal gifts are included in this line of in-house goods. Even with slotted delivery models, the platform has maintained a high client retention rate of over 50% thanks to this focus.
With the belief that quality and brand recognition may outperform speed alone in India’s changing grocery battles, the company is also extending private labels into occasion-based and impulse-led items in an effort to open up new revenue streams.
bigbasket, a TATA Enterprise, has announced the appointment of Manish Bajoria as its new Chief Financial Officer. In this role, Manish will oversee all aspects of the company’s finance function and play a key role in shaping bigbasket’s financial strategy as it enters its next phase of development and innovation.
Manish brings over 20 years of experience in strategic finance, commercial management, and digital transformation across diverse sectors. Prior to joining bigbasket, he served as CFO at Vini Cosmetics, where he led end-to-end financial management and played a pivotal role in the company’s digital transformation. He has also held senior finance leadership roles at Amazon and Hindustan Unilever, where he was instrumental in expanding operations, managing large P&Ls, and building high-governance, growth-focused teams. Manish began his career at Tata Steel Limited and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.
Speaking about the appointment, Hari Menon, bigbasket, said, “We are happy to have Manish on board at a time when bigbasket is growing across many fronts. He brings deep financial experience and a practical understanding of how businesses work on the ground. His steady approach and ability to work through complex situations will be a real asset as we continue to scale and stay focused on what matters, serving our customers better and building a strong, sustainable business.”
Adding further, Manish Bajoria, said, “I am excited to join bigbasket at a time when the company is scaling rapidly and redefining the grocery and convenience ecosystem in India. I look forward to working with the leadership team to improve financial processes, support growth, and create lasting value for customers, partners, and employees.”
About bigbasket, A TATA Enterprise
bigbasket, a TATA Enterprise, is creating milestones in the online grocery market and has recently overhauled its supply chains across cities to fulfil a majority of customer orders faster. The company’s operations have expanded to more than 400 cities in India, recording about 8 million customer orders per month.
According to media reports, the salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Sons only intends to invest in its digital division, Tata Digital, by the middle of 2025. To advance its growth portfolio until then, Tata Digital will need to rely on loan financing and internal resources. A media report claims that this choice is in line with the business’ overarching plan to improve execution, accountability, and return on capital under the direction of Naveen Tahilyani, the company’s new CEO. The report also emphasises how, while keeping an eye on expansion, Tahilyani has tightened spending controls across the Tata Group’s divisions. This comes days after N Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, urged group company CEOs to pursue rapid expansion in spite of growing market uncertainty both domestically and internationally.
BigBasket Hitting the IPO in Coming Years
Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto are fierce rivals of Tata Digital’s rapid commerce division, BigBasket, and they are all increasing their costs in an effort to obtain a competitive advantage in the market. In addition, BigBasket is reportedly considering using public markets for an initial public offering (IPO) in the upcoming years. It is important to remember that Tata Digital saw a positive turn in the fiscal year 2023–24 (FY24), reducing its standalone losses from INR 1,370 Cr to INR 1,201 Cr.
According to officials, Tata Neu is currently actively utilising a data-driven approach to reach all consumer access points within the system, including collaborations with outside parties. The majority of the additional capital for BigBasket and 1mg is being obtained through debt rather than a new equity injection as part of this approach. To date, Tata Sons has contributed more than $2 billion to the mega app developed by Tata Digital.ET previously covered the funding plans of e-pharmacy 1mg and e-grocer BigBasket.
Tata Group’s Current Financial Dynamics
Additionally, Tata Digital’s overall revenue more than doubled from INR 204.3 Cr in FY23 to INR 420.5 Cr. Nonetheless, the first half of FY25 experienced single-digit revenue growth for a number of Tata Group entities, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Motors, Tata Steel, and Tata Power. This was further supported by a similar amount of enterprises experiencing a decline in their profitability. Additionally, Tata Digital saw a number of advancements in its brands, like Tata Neu and Croma. One of Tata Neu’s biggest revenue generators, Croma, named Shibashish Roy as its new CEO this month with the goal of accelerating development after restructuring. During the same month, Tata Neu launched Neu Flash, a fast commerce delivery service aimed at customers in a variety of markets, such as electronics and groceries.
Tata Cliq made INR 78.5 crore in revenue and INR 175 crore in losses in FY23. For Neu, Tata Cliq is an essential business since fashion is a major sector for any e-commerce platform. To grow its fashion business, Tata Cliq, which is part of Tata Unistore and is run by CEO Gopal Asthana, is working closely with the Neu team. After Vikas Purohit left in October of last year, Asthana was named CEO.
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Online grocery shopping is fast gaining popularity among Indians. According to a Redseer report, India’s online grocery retail market is all set to touch $10.5 billion by 2023. A company that holds a huge share of this fast-growing market is BigBasket.
Founded in 2011 by the dot-com bubble survivors V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, and Abhinay Choudhari, Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd., trading as BigBasket, became a household name soon after it came into existence.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, BigBasket is currently known as one of India’s largest online grocers and offers an impressive selection of products from over 1,000 brands, delighting over 6 million satisfied customers.
In May 2021, Tata Group became the BigBasket’s owner by acquiring a majority stake of 64% in the company. Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in BigBasket, putting the Indian conglomerate in a direct race with e-commerce players Amazon, Walmart, Flipkart, and Reliance Industries. The stake was bought by Tata Digital Limited, a unit of Tata Sons.
In this article, you can find detailed information about BigBasket, including the company’s founders, history and journey, business model, revenue, funding, acquisitions, and more.
BigBasket Company Details
Startup Name
BigBasket
Headquarter
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
E-commerce, Grocery, Grocery Delivery
Founders
V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari
BigBasket is into delivering everyday cooking essentials like ghee (clarified butter), diced coconut, fragrant basmati rice, and more, amounting to a total of over 40,000 items, along with other household products ranging from bread to laundry detergents for the customers to shop from. The company gets all of them delivered to their doorsteps. The target motive of the company is to enable the ease of grocery shopping online to avoid traffic and the drudgery of supermarket visits.
To explore new opportunities, the company has also launched 3 new businesses – bb Daily, bb Instant, and bbnow.
bb Daily isa subscription-based service that allows customers to order milk and fresh groceries. With this platform, the customers have to place the order before 10 PM, and they eventually get the goods delivered between 5 AM – 7 AM the next day.
bb Instant is BigBasket’s unmanned vending machine that is mostly available in corporate offices, tech parks, and apartment buildings in Tier I cities.
bbnow, the rapid grocery delivery service by BigBasket, allows you to order daily essentials like fruits, vegetables, cooking necessities, and household items and have them delivered to your doorstep within just 15-30 minutes.
BigBasket has also launched Fresho stores, which is currently serving as the first offline retail store of BigBasket that has already been opened at Basaveshwar Nagar in Bangalore. These BigBasket stores are technology-driven, self-service stores for customers.
BigBasket – Founders and Team
BigBasket was founded by V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, and Abhinay Choudhari in 2011. Prior to BigBasket, the founders also founded Fabmart.com, an online platform that sold books, toys, and groceries in the year 1999. Fabmart was sold to a grocery chain in 2006.
Big Basket Founders
V.S. Sudhakar
BigBasket Co-founder V S Sudhakar was the CEO of Planetasia. He has vast experience working in the IT sector.
Hari Menon
BigBasket CEO Hari Menon comes with vast experience in diverse fields. Prior to Big Basket, Menon was the CEO of Indiaskills, the Vocational Education joint venture of Manipal Group with City & Guilds, UK. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, Hari Menon also worked as the Country Head at Planetasia, one of India’s first Internet services businesses. Hari also held top positions with IT majors like Wipro Infotech.
V.S. Ramesh
V.S. Ramesh is theHead of Logistics & Supply Chain at BigBasket. An Electronics Engineering graduate from Karnataka University, V.S. Ramesh has over 21 years of experience in the Indian Navy handling Operations and Logistics. Ramesh is an Electronics Engineer, who earlier co-founded Fabmall.
Vipul Parekh
Vipul Parekh is the Head of Finance & Marketing at BigBasket. Vipul is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore and worked witha range of companies holding key leadership positions including Wipro Limited and Trinethra Super Retail Ltd. He also worked with Peepul Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd., a leading Private Equity Fund as an Investment Director. Parekh also co-founded Fabmall before co-founding BigBasket.
Abhinay Choudhari
Abhinay Choudhari was the Head of New Initiatives at BigBasket along with being a Co-founder. Abhinay is anIIM Ahmedabad alumnus. Besides working with leading IT companies like iGATE & Infosys, Abhinay also founded Stylecountry.com, one of India’s first online fashion retail stores. Stylecountry.com had to be closed down as it did not turn out to be profitable.
Abhinay Choudhari has taken a silent exit from BigBasket on August 5, 2021. Soon after Tata acquired BigBasket in May 2021, Abhinay decided not to continue working in the same firm, which he finally managed to do in August. As a parting note to his employees, Choudhari has mentioned that he left BigBasket only to build another company from scratch due to “the start-up itch” that has been growing in him for nine years. Choudhari hinted to “solve another equally painful chore for many Indian households” in the form of a new business that he will found. Next, he will be looking forward to an online laundry business, as per reports.
TN Hari, who served as the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at BigBasket for 7 long years, has let people know that he has decided to do something different via his Linkedin handle. TN Hari, in his career with BB, which has now found a new, safe home with the Tata Group acquisition, has already spent 20 years in the Indian startup ecosystem. During these years, he boasts of wearing many different hats as an Angel Investor, Advisor to other VC Firms, Mentor at Startup Accelerators, Sounding Board to Founders, Author, and Columnist. Hari has also revealed that he has been a part of 5 startups to date, 3 out of which have already turned into unicorns. TN Hari has also been identified by Linkedin as one of the top voices of India for 3 consecutive years. Establishing the Artha School of Entrepreneurship is the new goal of this top executive of BB. The mission of Artha would be to accelerate the “journeys of the entrepreneurs in scaling their ventures and contributing to economic and social prosperity of their communities.”
RainCan, which was originally a daily essential subscription-based startup, later acquired by Big Basket in 2018, was eventually rebranded as BBDaily.
BigBasket currently boasts of being a 5000+ strong company.
BigBasket – Startup Story | How BigBasket Started?
All of this began when the BigBasket founders decided to exploit the experience they got after the massive failure of the dot com bubble. Hence, they decided to create a unique website that was never done before. All the founders of Big Basket had garnered relevant experiences in eCommerce when they created Fabmart.com.
Fabmart.com was an online platform that sold books, toys, and groceries in the year 1999. Back then, only within a few months, they realized that not just our country but the whole world was not ready to take this buzz of digitization. In the year 2006, Fabmart was merged with a brick-and-mortar grocery chain and the founders ended up selling their startup for a lump sum amount.
Then came the golden year of 2011, when the team reunited and started re-evaluating the idea of again coming up with something new and exciting. Despite all the criticism they had received back in 1999, they stood very strong on the fact that the time to do something that’d put them on the map was then. In 2011, the smartphone market was booming and anything and everything was available except groceries, of course, and that right then was their Eureka moment.
BigBasket used to fulfill its orders by purchasing products from Metro Cash and Carry stores, prior to setting up its first warehouse.
“We had people in the Metro stores, literally operating that as our warehouse” says Hari Menon, Co-founder & CEO of BigBasket.
BigBasket – Name, Tagline, and Logo
BigBasket Logo
Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt. Ltd., trades as “BigBasket,” the name of which is drawn from the idea of shopping baskets, which the company extends to their customers online.
The recent tagline of the brand reflects “Har Din Sasta.”
BigBasket – Business and Revenue Model
BigBasket’s private label business is driven by lower prices and higher margins. Roughly 35% of the revenue comes from private labels. The aim here is to fill the gap in distinct categories like organic food, and high-end consumer products, to name a few. Also, the company offers a lower price point for staples and fruits and vegetables. They also provide idli/dosa batter on their online platform, which is very rare and does not have a lot of competition.
Moreover, on the B2B side, BigBasket serves its private label to about a thousand Kirana stores, huge corporates, and HoReCa (hotels, restaurants, cafes). Regarding Big Basket’s Business Model, Big Basket follows both the ‘inventory model’ and ‘the hyper-local model’.
Under the inventory model, the company buys products from leading suppliers like P&G, HUL, mills, farmers, etc., stores the products in warehouses, and supplies the same to the customers on order. In the case of perishable goods, BigBasket further has tie-ups with local farmers and suppliers from whom it procures the goods as per orders and supplies the same to the customers.
Under the ‘hyper-local model’, BigBasket has a tie-up with 2000+ grocery stores across India to deliver products within one hour from the neighborhood.
With the opening of its physical store, Fresho, BigBasket is also a step ahead in the physical grocery space, which is soon expected to be a revenue generator for the company.
BigBasket – Startup Challenges
One of the main challenges of any startup in India is getting the customers to try the service first since the resistance level is really high. This is followed by retaining these consumers despite all the other factors in the market like competitors, local vendors, and buying habits, which were there for BigBasket too.
Also, since it was one of a kind startup dealing with groceries, which was never the case before, it took a while for the consumers to place trust in a brand like BigBasket and start using its services.
Data Breach Issues
Online grocery store BigBasket faced a massive data breach in November 2020 as the company had allegedly leaked the data of over 2 crore users on the dark web. BigBasket, funded by Jack Ma-owned Alibaba Group, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, and CDC group has filed a complaint in this regard with Cyber Crime Cell in Bengaluru.
According to media reports, Cyble, a cyber intelligence firm, informed that the grocery e-commerce platform BigBasket leaked data including names, email IDs, password hashes, contact numbers, addresses, etc, on the dark web. Also, Cyble informed that a hacker had put the data on sale for over Rs 30 lakh.
Reacting to this, BigBasket said: “A few days ago, we learned about a potential data breach at Bigbasket and are evaluating the extent of the breach and authenticity of the claim in consultation with cybersecurityexperts and finding immediate ways to contain it. We have also lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell in Bengaluru and intend to pursue this vigorously to bring the culprits to book.”
Bengaluru-based BigBasket also ensured that the confidentiality and security of customers are their priority and it does not store any financial data (including credit card numbers) etc and is positive that this financial data is secure.
“The only customer data that we maintain are email IDs, phone numbers, order details, and addresses so these are the details that could potentially have been accessed. We have a robust information security framework that employs best-in-class resources and technologies to manage our information. We will continue to proactively engage with best-in-class information security experts to strengthen this further,” the statement by BigBasket read.
Cyble also claimed that the breach may have occurred on October 30, 2020, and it has already informed Bigbasket about it.
BigBasket has raised a total of $1.5 billion in funding over 20 rounds. The latest funding for the company was raised on December 21, 2022, when BigBasket raised $200 million from its majority stakeholder, Tata Digital. This funding round raised BigBasker’s valuation to $3.2 billion.
Here are the details of the latest funding raised by Big Basket:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors
December 21, 2022
Venture Round
$200 million
Tata Digital
June 2, 2022
Venture Round
$45 million
Supermarket Grocery Supplies
April 13, 2022
Venture Round
$121 million
Supermarket Grocery Supplies
April 15, 2020
Debt Financing
$51.8 million
Alibaba Group
April 9, 2020
Venture Round
$60 million
Alibaba Group
July 2019
Debt Financing
$14 million
Trifecta Capital
May 2019
Series F
$150 million
Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund
January 2019
Venture Round
–
Growth Story
February 2018
Series E
$300 million
Alibaba Group
October 25, 2017
Venture Round
$4.3 million
Helion Ventures Partners
October 10, 2017
Debt Financing
$838.1K
Trifecta Capital Advisors
October 1, 2017
Venture Round
$5 million
Bessemer Venture Partners
September 2017
Series E
$280 million
Alibaba Group, Paytm Mall
March 2017
Debt Financing
$6.9 million
Trifecta Capital Advisors
March 2016
Series D
$150 million
Abraaj Group
August 2015
Series C
$50 million
Bessemer Venture Partners
September 2014
Series B
$33 million
Helion Venture Partners
April 2014
Bridge Round
$3 million
Singapore-based private investor
March 2012
Series A
$10 million
Ascent Capital
BigBasket – Acquisitions
Big Basket has made 6 acquisitions to date. Their most recent acquisition was of Agrima Infotech, which the company acquired on February 19, 2022. The Tata-owned online grocery delivery platform has acquired the enterprise business segment of the Kerala-based deep tech company. This deal would allow the company to implement the unique computer vision technology platform, Psyight, at the self-checkout counters of the retail stores of BigBasket. Psyight behaves as a food recognition platform that is powered by the all-new computer vision technology to differentiate raw, cooked, and packaged food items, which will help its parent ahead.
DailyNinja was last acquired startup by BigBasket and the deal was materialized on Mar 24, 2020.
In June 2015, the company acquired ‘Delyver‘, an online platform that connects offline retailers with customers in a neighborhood. In October 2018, Big Basket acquired ‘Raincan‘ a subscription-based service provider for morning and breakfast essentials, headquartered in Pune. In October 2018, Big Basket also acquired ‘KWIK24‘ a company that manufactures and designs smart vending machines. On October 19, 2018, Big Basket announced the acquisition of the Bangalore-based startup ‘Morning Cart‘. Morning Cart is a daily essential ordering platform.
Here are the details of the Acquisitions by BigBasket:
Acquired
Date
Agrima Infotech
February 19, 2022
DailyNinja
March 24, 2020
Morning Cart
October 19, 2018
KWIK24
October 19, 2018
Raincan
October 18, 2018
Delyver
June 12, 2015
BigBasket – Growth and Revenue
Tata Digital’s acquisition of controlling stakes in BigBasket in May 2021 has played a pivotal role in fueling the company’s growth trajectory.
BBNow
BBNow marks a significant game plan for BigBasket’s growth strategy. Officially launched in Bengaluru, this quick-commerce service enables lightning-fast grocery deliveries to customers within 15–30 minutes, catering to the urgent needs of its existing customer base. With BBNow, BigBasket aims to further solidify its position in the e-grocery market and tap into the increasing demand for rapid and convenient grocery delivery services. The introduction of BBNow allows the company to compete more effectively with other quick-commerce players like Swiggy Instamart and Zepto, presenting exciting growth opportunities for BigBasket in the fast-paced and competitive market landscape.
Fresho
BigBasket launched its first physical store, “Fresho” in Bangalore, in the last week of October 2021, as confirmed via an internal company email. The mentioned store has been open to the customers of Bangalore’s Basaveshwar Nagar since October 25, 2021, according to BigBasket co-founder VS Sudhakar, who informed the same to all the employees of the company. While writing about Fresho in his email, Sudhakar described the opening of the store, which is currently operational from 8 in the morning to 9 in the night, as an “extremely key, strategic initiative.”
BigBasket User Acquisition
BigBasket’s mobile app is currently accessed by over 6 million customers across the country, being operational in 26+ cities in India.
An interesting strategy that BigBasket follows to attract customers is that the company keeps into account the varied needs and different shopping habits of its customers belonging to different cities. The amount of attention the founders paid to little details put them in a competitively better position.
The team did their planning city-wise. They increased the number of leafy greens in Mumbai, supplied a special kind of rice (called Sona Masoori) in Bangalore, and went as far as providing eight different kinds of eggplants to picky customers. All in all, the company ensured its quality was nothing short of perfection.
Timely delivery is the essence of online shopping hence the team put a focused approach to this. They devised a model of customized software that automatically guides drivers to their destinations and helps the company achieve a near-perfect on-time rate. Late deliveries earn customers a 10% discount. Missing items are refunded at a cost that is 50% of whatever the item cost is.
BigBasket Financials
Bigbasket Financials
FY23
FY24
Operating Revenue
INR 9468.5 crore
INR 10061.9 crore
Total Expenses
INR 11284.7 crore
INR 11515 crore
Profit/Loss
INR -1785 crore
INR -1415 crore
BigBasket Financials FY24
BigBasket’s operating revenue increased by about 6.3% from FY23 to FY24, growing from INR 9,468.5 crore to INR 10,061.9 crore. Total expenses rose by around 2%, from INR 11,284.7 crore in FY23 to INR 11,515 crore in FY24. The company’s losses decreased by roughly 20.7%, from INR 1,785 crore in FY23 to INR 1,415 crore in FY24.
Bigbasket
FY23
FY24
EBITDA Margin
-14.02%
-9.39%
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue
Rs 1.19
Rs 1.14
ROCE
-51.37%
-70.62%
BigBasket’s B2C arm reported revenue from operations of INR 7,434 crore in FY23, reflecting a modest 4.8% growth compared to FY22 when the company’s revenue stood at Rs 7,095 crore.
In FY23, BigBasket’s B2C arm witnessed an 89% surge in losses, reaching Rs 1,535 crore, compared to Rs 813 crore in FY22.
Total expenses for the B2C arm increased by around 13% from Rs 7,929 crore in FY22 to Rs 8,998 crore in FY23. This rise in expenses was primarily attributed to higher employee benefit expenses, finance costs, and other miscellaneous expenses. Specifically, Innovative Retail spent Rs 916 crore on employee benefits in FY23, representing a 24% increase compared to Rs 739 crore spent in FY22.
BigBasket – Partnerships
Some of the BigBasket partnerships include:
Bigbasket partnered with Uber on April 3, 2020, where Uber’s driver-partners sought an association with the former to help the company deliver everyday essentials to its customers and others during the pandemic onslaught. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, and Noida were the first four cities to witness the same.
BigBasket partnered with Rajasthan Royals on September 16, 2020, who was declared as the official partner of the IPL team for the 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League.
BigBasket also became a partner with the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise on October 19, 2021, to deliver food products and groceries in India.
BigBasket – Awards and Recognitions
Among the major awards and recognitions that BigBasket won are:
BigBasket is recognized as one of the ‘Top 50 India’s Best Companies To Work For – 2023’ by Great Place to Work® India.
BigBasket ranked in the ‘Top 3 Best Places to Work’ in E-commerce and ‘India’s Best Workplaces in Retail’ for the third consecutive year in 2023.
It was declared the ‘Retail and eCommerce App of the Year’ at YourStory’s AWS Mobility Awards in 2017.
Owler has conferred upon BigBasket CEO Hari Menon the Top Rated CEO Award in 2017.
The company was placed 2nd at the Global E-Commerce Award ceremony hosted by Ecommerce Europe in Barcelona.
BigBasket Co-founder Abhinay Choudhari was awarded the IIMA Alumni Young Achievers’ Award.
BigBasket – Competitors
Despite growing at an increasing rate, BigBasket faces cut-throat competition in the market. Some of the major competitors of BigBasket are:
Though these players are acquiring strong market standing with time, the company tends to stand fit and fine and win the market with its large and ever-increasing consumer base. BigBasket is now doubly strong under the management of Tata.
BigBasket – Future Plans
As per reports, BigBasket plans to raise $80-100 million in debt and equity to drive business ambitions.
BigBasket has strong plans of retaining its post as the largest grocery delivery platform in India. So, the plan is to set up warehouses in all 26 operating cities of India to bring down the delivery time to 3 hours.
Big Basket has launched Fresho stores, and opened the first of their kind in Bengaluru, thereby entering the offline retail market. According to BigBasket’s co-founder and CEO Hari Menon, the goal is to achieve Rs 12,000 crore in sales by 2026 through 800 Fresho stores spread across 10 tier-1 cities.
As part of its future plans, Tata-owned BigBasket is considering launching an initial public offering (IPO) by 2025.
FAQs
What is BigBasket?
BigBasket is an Indian online grocery delivery service founded in 2011 and headquartered in Bangalore, offering a wide range of products delivered to customers’ doorsteps.
Who is BigBasket’s owner?
BigBasket is owned by the Tata Group.
Who are BigBasket’s founders?
BigBasket was founded by V.S. Sudhakar, Hari Menon, V.S. Ramesh, Vipul Parekh, and Abhinay Choudhari.
What is bigbasket bbnow?
bbnow, the rapid grocery delivery service by BigBasket, allows you to order daily essentials like fruits, vegetables, cooking necessities, and household items and have them delivered to your doorstep within just 15–30 minutes.
What is Bigbasket Wallet?
The Bigbasket Wallet is a pre-paid credit account that is associated with your Bigbasket account. This prepaid account allows you to pay a lump sum amount once to Bigbasket and then shop multiple times without having to pay each time.
Only two states, West Bengal and Odisha, allow alcohol home delivery, but media sources say six states may launch a pilot project after assessing it.
According to reports, Swiggy, BigBasket, Blinkit, and Zomato may soon deliver beer, wine, and liqueurs. Industry executives informed the media that New Delhi, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerela, and Goa are considering experimental projects. The media reported that executives indicated authorities are weighing the move’s merits and downsides.
Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Assam allowed liquor delivery during Covid-19 lockdowns with limits. Retail executives in West Bengal and Odisha reported a 20-30% sales rise from online delivery.
Expansion’s Driver: Consumer Interest and State Evaluations in Alcohol Home Delivery
With the help of the social media network LocalCircles, ISAWI surveyed 33,000 people in eight different cities in May 2021 about spirits delivery. Customers in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Chennai expressed an interest in home delivery services, with 81% citing safety, brand availability, and convenience as reasons to back up their response.
In order to weigh the pros and cons of online alcohol delivery, state officials are currently surveying e-commerce platforms and spirits producers.
Industry Support: Upside of Alcohol Home Delivery
Breweries and the industry as a whole have been quite supportive. Beverage and wine producers have indicated a lot of interest in home delivery of their products, according to industry experts. This includes United Breweries’ Kingfisher brand and Budweiser owner AB InBev. Because beer consumption is very consistent with food purchasing patterns, this trend is very attractive, especially to city dwellers.
Industry Challenges: Obstacles of Online Alcohol Delivery
Due to various political backlashes, perception issues, and pressure from physical retail bodies, delivery platforms continue to face obstacles when trying to execute online alcohol delivery plans.
According to HipBar creator Prasanna Natarajan, who spoke to a media house, the company’s services were halted due to “certain local lobby pressures” after they had begun operations in Karnataka in 2021. A complaint had even been launched at the Supreme Court by the company.
He went on to say that the regulations governing business in various areas vary substantially, making it difficult to establish businesses throughout large portions of the country. There’s concern about the potential consequences of underage buyers or instances of domestic violence resulting from careless drinking. Natarajan had informed the media that there is a fear that duties will be avoided and that the government will lose the three rupees in levies it receives for every rupee a manufacturer generates. This is because the government stands to lose this revenue.
There are, without a doubt, challenges to face. Businesses and consumers alike are excited about this pilot initiative that is taking place across multiple states in India. If this initiative is fruitful, it may serve as a model for similar endeavours in other sectors.
India’s leading digital commerce entity Flipkart is working to venture into the fast-paced world of quick commerce to meet the burgeoning demand for rapid delivery of everyday essentials.
Flipkart has recently unveiled its latest initiative of same-day delivery service now available in 20 major Indian cities.
This strategic move underscores Flipkart’s unwavering dedication to elevating customer satisfaction, and convenience and to revolutionize the eCommerce landscape.
“We are committed to meeting evolving customer expectations and delivering excellence in value, selection, and speed, with more initiatives expected on this front in the coming months,” Walmart-backed Flipkart said in a statement.
This new initiative of same-day delivery will be for customers across cities including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri and Vijayawada.
It would cover products like mobiles, essential items, electronics, home appliances, fashion, books, and lifestyle goods. The customers will get their products delivered before midnight if they place their orders by 1 pm without any extra charge.
Flipkart’s introduction of same-day delivery service represents a significant advancement in the Indian eCommerce market.
“We have invested in cutting-edge technologies, leveraged data analytics, and harnessed insights on demand patterns to ensure that we are well-equipped to anticipate and fulfill demand the very same day. I must acknowledge the hard work and dedication of our teams who have tirelessly contributed to making this vision a reality,” said Hemant Badri, Senior Vice President, Head of Supply Chain, Customer Experience & ReCommerce Business, Flipkart Group.
In the past year, quick commerce has surged into a billion-dollar industry with platforms like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart poised to exceed USD 1 billion in revenue in the financial year 2023-24.
The surge in quick commerce has captured Flipkart’s interest, prompting the eCommerce giant to enhance its emphasis on the grocery sector.
As quick commerce constitutes approximately 40% of online grocery delivery, it is increasingly fueling growth. Flipkart’s renewed focus on grocery aligns with a broader transition away from conventional eCommerce models centered on sales and discounts.
As of now, these apps are providing quick commerce to consumers in major Indian cities:
Blinkit
Swiggy Instamart
Zepto
Started operations in
January 2022
August 2020
April 2021
Revenue as of FY 2023 (in Rs crore)
724
3221
2024
Revenue as of FY 2022 (in Rs crore)
236
2036
142
Funds raised for quick commerce (in U.S.$ million) US$ 1 mn = Rs 8.2 cr
569
700
361
Current market share (in %)
40%
37-39%
20%
It’s essential to acknowledge how its rivals have also expanded into quick commerce to meet evolving customer demands.
Here’s how some of Flipkart’s competitors have ventured into quick commerce:
Amazon India
Amazon has been a key player in the Indian eCommerce sector, and it has also delved into quick commerce to enhance its delivery capabilities. The company offers Amazon Prime Now, which provides ultra-fast delivery of essentials, groceries, electronics, and more within a few hours.
Reliance Retail
Reliance Retail, through its digital arm JioMart, has been rapidly expanding its presence in the e-commerce space. Leveraging Reliance’s extensive network of physical stores and warehouses, JioMart offers quick delivery of groceries, household essentials, and other daily items.
BigBasket
As a leading online grocery platform in India, BigBasket has capitalized on the growing demand for quick delivery of essential items. The company offers express delivery services for groceries and household essentials, ensuring that customers receive their orders within a few hours. BigBasket has the quick commerce feature BB Now too to get groceries delivered in 15-30 minutes.
Blinkit
Grofers now Blinkit has rebranded itself to reflect its commitment to rapid delivery. With its extensive network of local partners and warehouses, Blinkit ensures that customers receive orders within a few minutes, making grocery shopping seamless.
Blinkit has begun selling home appliances, puja essentials, Eid special offerings like prayer mats, thobe kurte, ‘sehri’ and ‘iftar’ needs, ‘Holi’ needs, sweets, colors, thandai, bakery items, meats, seafood, cosmetics, mobiles and accessories, electronics, baby care products and much more.
Swiggy and Zomato
While primarily known for their food delivery services, Swiggy and Zomato have also entered the quick commerce space by offering delivery of groceries, medicines, and other essential items.
Zepto
Zepto is also the name of a quick commerce platform that enables businesses to offer fast delivery services for groceries, bakery products, kitchen essentials, paan corner (betel leaf), tobacco, health and hygiene, toiletries, clothing, and other essentials. Zepto provides tools and infrastructure to facilitate within minutes delivery of goods to customers’ doorsteps.
Dunzo
Dunzo has become synonymous with hyperlocal delivery, with its Daily service taking it a step further by guaranteeing delivery within 19 minutes. From groceries to medicines to food from nearby localities to letters to clothes from the nearest boutique, Dunzo Daily fulfills all your daily needs with lightning speed.
While Flipkart maintains a strong foothold in the market, achieving revenue growth poses a continual challenge. With the emergence of competitors such as Zepto and Blinkit, there is a critical need for Flipkart to establish itself within the quick commerce sector.
As per media reports, Flipkart is also weighing options to expand into quick commerce with the introduction of dark stores. Dark stores are like mini warehouses designed for online orders.
Flipkart is also planning to buy Dunzo Daily. Despite having raised approximately USD 500 million in funding, Dunzo has struggled to secure additional investment and meet its staff payroll.
The hyperlocal delivery company has lost ground to newer competitors like Zepto, Swiggy, and Zomato’s Blinkit, leading to a drop in its market position.
Flipkart, valued at over USD 32 billion, is considering buying Dunzo, known for its local delivery skills. This move could be smart, but talks might take a while because Dunzo has ties to Reliance Retail, its main investor owning a 26% share.
Flipkart wants to be careful about what it buys, especially considering Dunzo’s connections, according to an article published by Business Insights Now on February 23.
The prospects of quick commerce, including Flipkart’s role, are exceptionally promising, driven by evolving consumer preferences, technological advancements, and market dynamics.
Flipkart, along with other quick commerce platforms, will capitalize on increasing smartphone penetration, internet connectivity, and digital payment systems to broaden its reach across diverse demographics and geographic regions.
By 2028, it is anticipated that the number of users in the quick commerce market in India will reach 56.4 million users. The user penetration rate, which currently stands at 1.8% in 2024, is projected to rise to 3.8% by 2028.
Meanwhile, the quick commerce market in India is anticipated to reach a revenue of USD 3.3 billion in 2024, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2028) of 27.42%. This growth trajectory is expected to propel the market volume to USD 8.8 billion by 2028.
Revenue of Quick Commerce Market in India
Conclusion
In summary, Flipkart’s expansion of its same-day delivery service epitomizes its dedication to setting new benchmarks of excellence in the eCommerce arena.
With a focus on speed, convenience, and customer satisfaction, Flipkart reaffirms its position as a trailblazer in India’s digital commerce revolution.
As the quick commerce market continues to evolve and expand, Flipkart’s strategic initiatives and dedication to customer satisfaction will shape its trajectory in the years to come.
The future holds endless possibilities, and Flipkart stands ready to embrace the opportunities that lie ahead, driving forward the evolution of online retail.
“Many believe Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart will continue to dominate the future of Indian eCommerce. In my humble opinion, I would not bet against the hometown teams at Zepto and Zomato,” said a LinkedIn post by Paul Hudson, Founder and CIO, of Glade Brook Capital.
Glade Brook Capital, which supported Zepto in Mumbai last year, also invested in Zomato’s parent company, Blinkit, back in 2019.
FAQs
In how many cities will Flipkart provide the same-day delivery service?
Flipkart will provide same-day delivery service in 20 major Indian cities including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Coimbatore, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri and Vijayawada.
What will be the revenue of the quick commerce market in India in 2024?
The quick commerce market in India is anticipated to reach a revenue of USD 3.3 billion in 2024, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2028) of 27.42%. This growth trajectory is expected to propel the market volume to USD 8.8 billion by 2028.
Who are the competitors of Flipkart in the field of quick commerce?
The competitors of Flipkart in quick commerce include Dunzo, Amazon India, Reliance Retail, BigBasket, Blinkit, Zepto, Zomato, and Swiggy.
The mindset of the people has changed from, over the decade, as now people want to be the boss of their own and don’t want to restrict themselves in the walls of 9-to-5 jobs. This decade brought a hit of entrepreneurs and their startups with amazing ideas and execution, that has helped people and has changed the ways, for people living their lives.
15 Best Startups of the Decade (2010-2020)
Here are the 15 best startups in 2010s which have changed the market of the Indian entrepreneurship-
The idea of ordering food online at the start of the decade was an idea that most of the people didn’t think upon but soon the thought changed with the arrival of food-delivering apps like Swiggy.
Launched in 2014, Swiggy is known as the largest and most valuable food ordering and delivering the platform in India, currently operating in more than 100 cities across India. Online food delivery platform, Swiggy, has launched its third series of television commercials and digital campaign, that are reflective of new-age India and its changing culinary culture. Swiggy tagline is “Swiggy karo, phir jo chahe Karo!”
Paytm
Founded: 2019
Paytm Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Go cashless has been the motto of 2019 and the public is taking it quite effectively. The wave of online transactions hit India in 2010 when Paytm was launched. PAYTM is an e-commerce system, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It is available in 11 Indian languages and offers online use-cases as mobile recharges, utility, bill, payments, travel, movies, and events booking, in-store payments at grocery stores, fruits and vegetable shops, restaurants, parking, tolls, pharmacies, etc.
Oyo Rooms
Founded: 2013
OYO Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Whenever it comes to book rooms for a vacation, weekend or a party, the one-stop shop is OYO. Founded in 2013, by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO Rooms is an Indian hotel chain and fastest-growing hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and living spaces at cheap prices. It is currently UAE, Nepal, China, Brazil, UK, Philippines, Arabia, Sri Lanka, etc.
Finding bus seats can be quite hectic and without a good seat, going to a long ride can be hectic. So, to save the hassle, one can always go for redbus. An online app company, the user can look up to for buses and book tickets accordingly and get confirmed tickets, without struggling for tickets on the way. Redbus was founded by Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju and Sudhakar Pasupunuri in 2006, however, it became famous after 2010 when Indian people were getting introduced to mobile internet.
Ola
Founded: 2010
Ola Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Traveling was made much easier and better by OLA, which was founded in 2010 by Bhavish Agarwal. Now, it’s one of the largest cab services in India, with over 250,000 cabs and rickshaws in the app running over 85 Indian cities. The company is expanding its reach everyday. As of 2020, it has expanded its services to UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
Zivame
Founded: 2011
Zivame Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Zivame is an e-retail lingerie brand for women, founded in 2011 by Richa Kar, to empower women to buy lingerie freely without feeling embarrassed as of in normal offline shops, which is generally filled by men. Meaning of Zivame is ‘radiant me’. It has also been known for showing diversity as it has no age -limit. It sells shapewear, sleepwear, and activewear through both online and offline stores.
Who would have thought in 2000s that we would be ordering groceries online? This thought also came into fruition in 2009 by Abhinav Choudhari, Hari Menon and Vipul Parekh. Now, BigBasket is an online food and grocery store that delivers personal and household needs right to customer’s doorstep. As of 2020, BigBasket is available in almost all the cities of India. Shah Rukh Khan is brand ambassador of BigBasket and bigbasket tagline is “I’m bigbasketeer, Are you?”
Byju’s
Founded: 2011
Bigbasket Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
The Bangalore based educational technology platform Byju’s is an online tutoring and coaching firm that was started in the year 2011 and runs on a freemium model. The main aim of Byju’s is to provide coaching through online video lectures for students of class 1 to class 12 and also for people who prepare for competitive exams like IIT – JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, and GMAT.
Byjus- the Learning app was launched in the year 2015 by Byju Raveendran and since then it has been a huge success. It is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has 900000 paid subscribers. The app helps the students to learn on their own rather than the traditional culture of spoon-feeding.
Firstcry
Founded: 2010
Firstcry Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
It is an overwhelming feeling for the new parents to buy all the goods for the baby or the newborn. Firstcry was started to fulfill that demand in 2010, by Supam Maheswari, when he couldn’t find quality toys for his new-born daughter. Now, firstcry sells baby products like diapers, cribs, clothes, nursery items, etc. It has become a popular website for buying baby products from online and offline stores.
Freshdesk
Founded: 2010
Freshdesk Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Cloud-based software is the need of every brand to store all the data of the consumer. But back in the starting days of the decade, there were very few companies dealing with cloud-based software.
One of the most popular company was Freshdesk ( now known as Freshworks), which was launched in 2010. It was started by former ZOHO employees Girish Mathrubootham and Shanmugam Krishnasamy, who teamed up to create better software to help enterprises do after-sales support more effectively. The founder Girish Mathrubootham, is also a mentor and a key figure in the Chennai startup ecosystem.
Freshdesk’s customers in India include Saavn, Decathlon, Grofers, Lenskart, Oyo Rooms, Byju’s, and Goibibo.
Limeroad
Founded: 2012
Limeroad Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Fashion has always found its way in women’s shelf, one of India’s most popular online boutique is Limeroad. It was founded in 2012 by Suchi Mukherjee and Ankush Mehra. It is known for being specialized in clothing and accessories for men, women or kids. The online store also allows the users to create their look on a virtual scrapbook by using the brand’s products and also allows users to earn from the scrapbook they create and then, they can use the points on the purchase, at the time of checkout.
Shopclues
Founded: 2011
Shopclues Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Another big brand which started in 2011, was Shopclues. It was founded Sanjay Sethi, along with former wall street analyst Sandeep Agarwal. Both the founders returned from California, decided to go into a new venture. The company has over 6 lakh merchants and 2.8 crore products on its platform serving over 32,000 pin codes across the country. Although, the company didn’t do well in the market, Sandeep Agarwal did inspire many youngsters to get into entrepreneurship through his journey.
Buying furniture online? That was a dream of people in 2000s! But that dream was completed by Ambareesh Murty in 2012. He teamed up with Ashish Shah, one of the former head of eBay Motors in India and the Philippines and launched Pepperfry. It is a dealer of the best quality furniture and delivers it at the doorstep of the buyer. It has soon gained immense popularity in the country.
Snapdeal
Founded: 2010
Snapdeal Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
With the tagline of “unbox Zindagi’, Snapdeal managed to be a home favorite for varieties of goods ranging from home, fashion, electricals, sports, etc. It sells over 3 crores (30 million) products across 800+ diverse categories from over 1,25,000 regional, national and international brands and retailers and a reach of 6,000 towns and cities across the country. Although this ecommerce venture didn’t do as good as others like Flipkart or Amazon, it was still a big success in the early years of this decade.
Hike
Founded: 2012
Hike Logo | Best Startups of the Decade
Once a very popular youth app for messaging, Hike messenger has left an interesting mark on the market. It was founded by Kavin Bharti Mittal. The hike is a cross-platform instant messaging, voice over IP, social media and peer to peer file sharing app, launched on 12 December 2012.
Conclusion
These startups are known to be change force in the world of startups in the decade and are known to inspire many other startups. 2010s is probably the most revolutionary decade in the entrepreneurship world. However, we hope this decade brings more innovation to lives.
Gig employment has revolutionized the Indian economy in recent years, providing a large number of jobs for the population and adding to the country’s GDP in the long run. It is getting so popular that people are actively choosing gig work over regular work due to the convenience and flexibility of the job. Companies that recruit gig workers save money on office space, equipment, and other expenses, while workers enjoy flexible work schedules and the opportunity to do something they like and also earn more by doing multiple gigs.
Gig jobs were already popular before the pandemic, but since the COVID outbreak, many individuals who lost their normal employment have turned to gigs, which are very easy to find and offer an excellent opportunity to make money. More businesses are turning to gig workers in place of full-time staff, and their operational methods are shifting as a result. This allows them to hire more talent but at a lower cost.
Companies that provide gig jobs are expanding in India, and they are assisting a large number of people who are looking for work. We’ll take a look at a few of these businesses in this article.
About Gig Economy and Benefits and Challenges of Gig Workers
Flipkart
Flipkart – Gig Economy Company
Most of the gig workers working at Flipkart are delivery service people. Founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the e-commerce giant connects sellers to the consumers and delivers the products to the customers. Flipkart also provides training to its supply chain employees and provides them with all the gear necessary for the job.
Urban Company
Urban Company – Gig Economy Company
Urban Company is an on-demand home service platform that allows consumers to access a variety of services from the comfort of their own homes. Urban Company currently has 35,000+ skilled professionals providing 7,50,000+ services each month, as well as having a worldwide presence in four countries.
Bigbasket
Bigbasket – Gig Economy Company
Founded in 2011, Bigbasket is an online grocery delivery service that brings goods to your home once you place an order. The company employs roughly 35,000 people across 30 Indian cities, a large percentage of which are delivery drivers.
Swiggy is an online food delivery service that brings food right to your door. Founded in 2014, Bangalore-based company that operates in 500+ cities. Swiggy is also known as one of the fastest-growing unicorn companies in India. This delivery business, which employs over 1,30,000 people, makes around 1 million deliveries every day.
Zomato
Zomato – Gig Economy Company
Zomato was launched in 2008 as Foodiebay, and in 2010 it was renamed Zomato Media Pvt Ltd. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah were the founders of the Zomato. The business joined India’s Unicorn club in 2018. It is available in a variety of countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Amazon
Amazon – Gig Economy Company
Amazon first entered the Indian market in 2013, and it has since grown to become one of the country’s largest online retail platforms. Amazon has created Flex, which provides part-time delivery work and other Amazon gig jobs in India for workers who want to make extra money. Those who have their own vehicles are eligible to apply for the delivery job, and can earn around Rs.140 per hour.
Dunzo
Dunzo – Gig Economy Company
Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suli, and Mukund Jha established Dunzo in 2014. It’s an online service that delivers necessities and groceries to customers’ homes. The company is headquartered in Bangalore. Jaipur, Gurgaon, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad are among the eight major cities in India where Dunzo is now active.
PharmEasy
PharmEasy – Gig Economy Company
PharmEasy is an online drug and healthcare supplies delivery service based in Mumbai. The application also provides online doctor consultations and telehealth. PharmEasy app works by taking the customer’s prescription, verifying it at the store, and then delivering the medications as needed. During the pandemic, the company also launched the gift a mask campaign, in which customers were encouraged to donate a mask to frontline employees, with the company matching each donation.
Ola Cabs
Ola – Gig Economy Company
Ola cabs, often known as Ola, is an online taxi and rideshare service that offers consumers rides that can be simply booked online. The company, which is based in Bangalore, provides services in practically all of the country’s main cities. Despite its many issues, Ola continues to have a large user base in the country.
Porter
Porter – Gig Economy Company
The company was founded in 2014 and is active in over 13 cities and has served over 50 lakh customers. The Porter provides transportation aids to the customers, which also helps the owner-drivers with employment and provides them with a consistent source of income. For now, the company has around 2 lakh owner-drivers.
Uber
Uber – Gig Economy Company
Uber began operations in India in 2013, and it has since served over 95 million riders and drivers. It is an online taxi and rideshare company that accepts online reservations for rides. Uber India has supplied gig jobs to a large number of drivers, however the Uber structure in India is very different from that in other developed countries.
Mr. Right is a home service business that offers a variety of services such as appliance repair, deep cleaning, and more. The company accepts orders online and will send a professional with a good track record to the customer’s home to complete the work. The organization employs over 60,000 freelancers and offers a variety of home services.
Blinkit
Blinkit – Gig Economy Company
Blinkit, formerly Grofers, is an online platform for ordering groceries and other necessities. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded the company in 2013. The company began operations in Delhi and has since expanded to other cities. The company’s goal is to alleviate the problems and inconveniences that customers and merchants face as a result of the market’s disorganized setup.
Conclusion
Gig jobs are slowly but steadily gaining popularity in India. Because of the pandemic, there has been an increase in gig workers, and some individuals are enjoying it and do not want to return to their former jobs. Gig jobs offer convenience and flexibility. Gig workers make up a major portion of the country’s workforce and contribute significantly to its GDP. It is something that the authorities must address, and actions to protect gig workers and provide them with fair working conditions must still be taken.
FAQs
What is gig work?
Gig workers work as short-term, temporary, or independent contractors for one or more companies, rather than a regular, in-office, full-time position with a single corporation.
How much do gig workers earn in India?
The average salary for gig workers in India is around Rs 12,000 to Rs 16,000.
What is the most popular gig job?
Delivery driver is the most popular gig job.
What is called Gig economy?
Gig economy is a workforce environment for short-term employment, contractual jobs, and independent contractors who do not get monthly wage, isntead they get paid for completing a Gig.
In April 2020, Reliance Industries Ltd launched JioMart, an e-commerce website on the Jio platform. JioMart is an online grocery shop that delivers 50,000+ grocery items at a discount to your home via a fast delivery system. It is based on a demand-driven model. The website began operations in Thane, Kalyan and Navi Mumbai and eventually expanded throughout India. Customers responded positively to the service, and the firm is currently expanding its presence in other Indian cities and villages. JioMart has developed a digital pan-India infrastructure in collaboration with local Kirana stores and its retail outlets.
Instead of employing a warehouse infrastructure, the firm works with local shops. The grocery goods are sourced by these shops and delivered to the customers.
Reliance plans to compete with existing grocery platforms in India, such as Swiggy, BigBasket, Zomato, Grofers, and others, via JioMart. Some interesting facts regarding the e-commerce platform are listed below.
JioMart, unlike its competitors Flipkart and Amazon, does not stock its items in massive warehouses. To supply merchandise, they have partnered with local retailers or Kirana stores.
Jiomart Selling Platforms
JioMart Grocery Shopping Platform
Fresh fruits and vegetables, groceries, snacks, drinks, home & household basics, beauty & hygiene, and infant care are just a few of the supermarket items available at JioMart.
You may purchase and order things using the Jiomart website and app. Previously, Jiomart teamed with Mark Zuckerberg through Facebook-owned WhatsApp, and the two companies joined together to improve JioMart’s service and reach out to WhatsApp customers. Users may submit orders over Whatsapp, which would make it easier for clients who are not comfortable using digital platforms to shop from JioMart. As a result, the service became much more user-friendly.
How Does Jiomart Work With Retailers?
Jiomart links with local businesses and delivers items to clients by obtaining them from the closest store in the customer’s neighbourhood. To place the order, the consumer will utilise their official WhatsApp number.
The user will get a bill that must be paid in cash after confirmation. When the order is ready, the client will be notified and instructed to pick up the order from the store.
Any retailer can easily be a seller at JioMart. To become a vendor on JioMart, a retailer must first register. Store owners may use the JioMart app to display their inventory, take orders, make deals, and manage online sales after registering. JioMart would make sure that vendors using its platform have a pleasant selling experience. Retailers will be provided with the necessary assistance to ensure that items are delivered to customers promptly.
Why Is Jiomart Such a Strong Competitor?
In comparison to competitors such as Amazon, Jiomart provides lower costs to merchants and has a significantly greater portion of the distribution pie. JioMart, unlike other e-commerce platforms, works with small businesses. It serves as a distributor, distributing items to merchants and fulfilling orders for JioMart through its small shop network.
JioMart presently delivers 250,000 orders every day, and the e-commerce site has ambitions to expand into electronics and other categories shortly. At the moment, JioMart is offering all food goods at a discount of 5% off the MRP. It is even less expensive than Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, and Swiggy. JioMart also provides a larger selection of items than other e-commerce sites and no order limits.
The firm has a 5% organised segment share in fashion retail, which is more than 50% greater than competitors like Aditya Birla Fashion (ABFRL).
Jiomart’s Features
Every e-commerce site has a minimum order requirement to qualify for free delivery. However, Jiomart has no such need. According to the firm, there is no minimum order for free home delivery. The firm plans to deliver orders placed on Jiomart within one to two hours, with large purchases arriving the same day or the following day. Every product on JioMart has a minimum discount of 5% and can go up to a maximum value of 50%.
The firm should accept things returned without inquiry, making the service more customer-friendly.
Mukesh Ambani’s Jiomart Aims
JioMart was not an impulsive action by Mukesh Ambani but rather a well-thought-out strategy to grab the lucrative e-commerce market. By 2021, the domain is expected to be worth $1.2 trillion. His superb effort reflects his aim to compete with global e-commerce behemoths like Amazon and Flipkart, controlled by Walmart.
Jiomart Supported through Reliance Aquisitions
Reliance Acquisition Supported JioMart
In 2019, JioMart was supported by the Reliance acquisitions of Grab A Grub and C-Square.
Grab A Grub is a logistics firm based in India that was formed in 2013. It was purchased for $14.9 million in March 2019 by Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited to assist Jio Mart logistics. Grab was selected because it has a track record of success with mega-brands, including McDonald’s, BigBasket, Myntra, Amazon Now, and Swiggy.
C-Square Info Solutions Private Limited, created in 2002, offers software solutions for e-commerce, retail, salesforce, and other industries. RIIHL purchased it in March 2019 for $11.56 million. RIL made this strategic decision to boost JioMart’s business strategy.
Jiomart’s Business Strategy
The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd pioneered Jiomart’s business strategy. It offers online to offline model (O2O). A user looks for a product or service online but purchases it through an offline channel under the O2O model.
Jiomart’s Competitors
Because of its massive success, Ambani’s Jio cellular service pushed a lot of other cellular networks on the verge of going out of business. This might be the case for Ambani’s current endeavour, as well as all of its competitors.
JioMart may have Amazon and Flipkart on its radar, but in its current form, the firm will be a bigger nuisance for Grofers and BigBasket, India’s leading grocery delivery companies- Swiggy and Zomato, too, have just entered the grocery delivery market in India.
Conclusion
With the advent of the largest player in the Indian industry, incumbent grocery delivery businesses face a major challenge. JioMart has various advantages over its competitors, in addition to having a well-known brand name.
Jio’s entry into the telecom industry sparked a revolution and changed the tables. Big names like Airtel and Vodafone, who had ruled for years, were knocked off their perches. It remains to be seen if Jio will be the market leader in online grocery delivery.
FAQs
Who is the founder of JioMart?
JioMart is a product of Reliance Industries, owned by Mukesh Ambani.
When was JioMart launched?
JioMart was launched in areas near Mumbai in April 2020. It was successfully launched in 200 cities in May 2020.
Can non Jio users use JioMart?
Yes, JioMart can be used by non Jio customers.
What is JioMart model?
JioMart works as O2O model (Online to Offline model) where users can order online and order gets delivered offline.
Indians are fixated on the startup culture. People are choosing entrepreneurship over mundane, 9-to-5 jobs. However, not everyone succeeds as an entrepreneur. A survey revealed that approximately 11% of the Indians are engaged in ‘early-stage entrepreneurial activities’. And only 5% of these early-stage entrepreneurs actually went on to establish their startup.
But keeping these statistics aside, some Indian startups have gone on to dominate their target segments. This post is dedicated to some of the most successful entrepreneurs from India whose ventures have revolutionized the daily life of millions, if not billions, across the globe. The path to name and fame wasn’t easy for them; it involved several trials and tribulations.
Ritesh Agarwal founded OYO rooms in 2015. He was the recipient of the TiE – Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award (2014), became the first Asian to win ’20 under 20’ Thiel Fellowship (2013), was named one of the top 50 entrepreneurs by TATA First Dot Awards (2013) and became the world’s youngest CEO at the age of 17. Ritesh Agarwal, an Orissa boy coming from a business-oriented family, went to Kota to become an engineer.
But unlike other JEE aspirants, his passion caught hold of him and he did not take JEE preparation seriously. Instead, he wrote a book called ‘Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopedia of Top 100 Colleges’; the book became immensely popular on Flipkart.
He was just 16 when he was selected for the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). With a penchant for traveling and having lived in tons of hotels, Ritesh observed a common problem at the places he stayed – the exorbitant price of the hotel room was not proportional to the facilities provided. He felt that majority of the hotels in India couldn’t satisfy the basic needs of a traveler on a budget.
Thus, he started Oravel Stays,his first venture in 2012. He improvised his business model and re-launched Oravel as ‘OYO’ which is short for ‘ON YOUR OWN’. Ritesh Agarwal became one of the most revered Indian entrepreneurs through OYO. At the age of 26 he became a billionaire.
Net worth of Ritesh Agarwal as of now is $2 billion. He became the second youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner in the world.
An epitome of courage and wisdom, Shradha Sharma was at the top of her career while working with famous news media houses such as Times of India and CNBC (Mumbai). During her stint with these organizations, she noticed that no one was willing to promote and air the stories of entrepreneurs—both successful and not-so-successful. She figured out that there are millions of stories storming around but no medium to share them with the masses. Shradha decided to create YourStory, an online portal that hosts entrepreneurial stories and other share-worthy content.
YourStory was started in 2008 and has allowed over 70,000 stories to come to the fore. Shradha Sharma leads a team of 100+ people who work together to offer content in 11 Indian languages. YourStory’s aim is to provide a voice to the roller coaster of emotions that an entrepreneur goes through. Shradha Sharma is the recipient of the L’Oreal Paris Femina Award and has been included in the list of Worlds’ Top 500 LinkedIn Influencers. She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India. Her channel has earned more than 26 million individual views.She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India.Her net worth is of $1.3 billion.
Bhavish Aggarwal, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded the most popular cab aggregator in India – Ola Cabs – with Ankit Bhati. He is the recipient of the Billionth award in 2013, Best startup of the year by IAMAL, and was listed in Forbes30 under 30 list. Bhavish revolutionized the idea of cab-hailing in India by making use of smartphones. Ola Cabs was different from the other cab services at that time in the sense that it leveraged smartphones and GPS technology; thus, it became easy for people to book cabs from anywhere, at any time. Bhavish Aggarwal left a well-paying job at Microsoft to work on Ola Cabs. No one supported his idea but it was his strong will, determination, and eagerness to take risks in life that led him to the pinnacle of success. Bhavish Aggarwal is counted amongst the most successful Indian entrepreneurs. According to Time magazine Bhavish Aggarwal is one of the 100 Most Influential People this year. His Net worth is $ 500 million.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm, the cornerstone of digitized payments in India. Vijay is from Aligarh, India. A graduate of the Delhi College of Engineering, Vijay worked on several projects and at a small startup before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. He put in USD 2 million to get One97 up and running. One97 is the parent company of Paytm. The payments platform gave Indians access to a mobile wallet, the facility of making payments using QR codes, simplified bill payments, and a lot more. These features made Paytm wildly popular. In this manner, Vijay Shekhar Sharma became an inspiration to budding entrepreneurs all over the globe. He Won the Best Serial Entrepreneur Award at the Rural and Urban Development Summit and Awards 2022 presented by the Minister of State for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, founders of Zomato
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah revolutionized the food delivery segment in India through its first foodtech unicorn Zomato. The duo are IIT Delhi graduates. Zomato started out as ‘Foodiebay’ and was first launched in Delhi. It was later extended to Mumbai and Kolkata. Now, there is not a single place in India where Zomato doesn’t render its services. Zomato’s mobile app is its USP; the app has an excellent user interface that lets you order food from the restaurant/eatery of your choice and make hassle-free payments. In Jan 2020, Zomato acquired one of its competitors- Uber Eats in India for a valuation of $300 million. In July 2022, Zomato went public with its stock listing at a premium of 53% over its issue price and it commanded a market cap of Rs 43,000 cr as of Mar 2023. In 2018, Prakash Chaddah left Zomato to venture into different fields. Net worth of Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal is estimated to be Rs 2,000 cr as of Mar 2023.
Kunal Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai, and briefly pursued an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before dropping out. Shah’s first startup was a company named Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organized retailers. Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon are the founders of one of India’s most innovative business models – Freecharge. CRED is Shah’s second venture after he sold Freecharge to Snapdeal in 2015 for $400 million. He is definitely one of the most famous entrepreneurs in India.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, founders of Flipkart
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the founders of Flipkart. The e-commerce segment in India underwent a drastic change courtesy of Flipkart. Sachin and Binny found discrepancies while searching for products on Amazon’s online store. The duo realized that the USP of their e-commerce initiative would be the timely delivery of products complemented by a simplistic user interface that leveraged the latest technology. Both the founders have now stepped down from their positions in Flipkart after it was acquired by Walmart in 2018. Flipkart is still giving a tough fight to all the e-commerce platforms out there and continues to win the hearts of Indians. India Today ranked them 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.
Deep Kalra is the founder of MakeMyTrip. The credit for the introduction of online train bookings in India goes to Deep Kalra. A graduate of St. Stephen’s College with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Deep worked for GE Capital and ABN AMRO bank. But the office culture and 9-5 job couldn’t captivate him enough. With a $2 million investment from eVentures and his co-founders, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip, (earlier known as ‘India Ahoy’) in the year 2000. The company was listed on NASDAQ in August 2010. After IRCTC joined the race, Deep diversified MakeMyTrip by introducing hotel bookings. MakeMyTrip has mergers with MyGola, TrulyMadly, and the ITC group, to name a few. Deep Kalra is the chairperson of the NASSCOM Internet Working Group, a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, and is part of CII’s tourism sub-committee. He was ranked no 1 in a list of most powerful digital influencers in India by KPMG in 2011. His net worth is $ 136 million.
BYJU’S has helped thousands of students who struggle with subjects such as mathematics and science crack some of the hardest entrance exams like the JEE, NEET, and UPSC, CAT, IAS, and international examinations such as GRE and GMAT. BYJU’S has dominated the online education vertical for quite some time now. Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU’S. He is an engineer who worked in a shipping firm and accidentally stepped into the field of teaching when he assisted his friends with their CAT exam. Raveendran’s friends cleared the exam with flying colors and this motivated him to take up teaching on a full-time basis. Byju Raveendran started BYJU’s with an initial investment of just INR 2 lakhs. The startup’s valuation has recently crossed $22 billion as of March 2022, and the company have over 115 million registered students.In January 2022, the company joined Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad, PrepInsta Prime and Vedantu to become one of the founding members of IAMAI’s India EdTech Consortium.
In March 2022, the company signed a contract with Qatar Investment Authority to establish a new edtech company and a R&D center in Doha.
The concept of bringing the grocery store to one’s doorstep has done wonders across the globe. With it, the problem of waiting in long queues at groceries has now gone for a toss. Indians too now prefer the online route for grocery shopping. And who has dominated this segment? BigBasket. Hari Menon is the founder of BigBasket. With sales of over INR 150 crores per month, BigBasket has cemented its place as one of the big shots in the Indian e-commerce domain. It is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata at present. In 2021 Tata Digital buys 64% stake in BigBasket His company received a lot of awards such as Consumer Internet Company of the Year by VC Circle Awards 2016, Best Online Grocer at Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2016, Best retail and e-commerce app of the year at AWS Mobility Awards 2017, etc.
Albinder Dhindsa wanted to provide the services of a grocery, bakery, and general store through a consolidated platform. His dream took the form of Grofers, an Indian online grocery service. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded Grofers. The duo worked hard to infuse new ideas into the online delivery system in India. Grofers is worth around $650 million today. The company has shifted from a B2B to a B2C business model. Grofers was named one of the Top 10 startups in Delhi and Gurgaon in 2014. Grofers had attained unicorn status or $1 billion in valuation, after raising over $120 million from food aggregator Zomato Ltd. On December 13, 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit. As of 2021 Albinder holds 5-10% stake in the company.
Sanjiv Bajaj is known as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. Born into a family of the Bajajs, a business house started by Jamnalal Bajaj, who led the Bajaj Group to glory, Sanjiv had the zeal to raise their family business to amazing highs. Sanjiv is the son of Rahul Bajaj and great-grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj. After completing his Btech. in Mechanical engineering, followed by a Masters in manufacturing systems from the University of Warwick and an MBA from Harvard Business school, Sanjiv started his career with Bajaj Auto in 1994.
He had been a promising businessman from the very first, which helped him scale numerous prestigious designations within the organization. He had brought the American-style supply chain management to Bajaj Auto. Bajaj is currently serving as a non-executive director of Bajaj Auto.
Along with Bajaj Auto, Sanjiv also contributed to Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Bajaj Finance for which he was appointed as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman. Sanjiv even led Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to emerge as the 2nd most profitable insurance company in India. Being an accomplished entrepreneur, Bajaj won a range of awards for the same, like the Entrepreneur of the Year” Award 2015-16 from Bombay Management Association, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2017, Economic Times Awards for Business Leader of the Year 2018. Therefore, Sanjiv Bajaj can be regarded as one of the greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders that India has seen to date. Sanjiv Bajaj has a revenue of over ₹ 36,692 crore ($ 4.4 billion) and profit of over ₹ 2,866 crore ($ 348 million) for H1 FY2022-23.
PolicyBazaar has certainly grown to become one of the best insurance aggregators and a global technology company but it might not have secured the illustrious position that it now stands on if it was not for the Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of the company, Yashish Dahiya. Dahiya was a student of IIT Delhi, from where he did his Bachelors in Engineering. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad, which was followed by an MBA from INSEAD in 2001.
Yashish was the MD of the pan-European travel distributor, ebookers.com, and had previous experience of working as a strategy consultant of Bain & Co. in their London office before he founded PolicyBazaar in 2008. Yashish Dahiya had a major contribution to PolicyBazaar since he founded the company along with Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008, which has successfully become a key influencer in consumer decisions around insurance now. Furthermore, the platform hosts over 100 million visitors a year on average on its platform.
Dahiya was honored with the EY Entrepreneur of The Year (EOY) 2019 award in the Financial Services category and more for all that he had done for PolicyBazaar. Yashish Dahiya is also an extraordinary sportsperson along with a celebrated entrepreneur. He is the Indian masters swimming champion and has taken part in several world masters swimming championships representing India. Furthermore, Dahiya also boasts of having the 3rd fastest half ironman timing and the 5th fastest Ironman timings amongst Indians across all age groups along with having the fastest timings in his age group. In June 2021, Policybazaar obtained the insurance broking license from IRADA and announced that it would set up 100 offline outlets across India. The company also surrendered its web aggregator license. PB Fintech Ltd, the parent company of Policybazaar, opened its initial public offering (IPO) and raised ₹5,625 crore(US$700 million).Shares of PB Fintech Ltd began trading on National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in November 2021.
It seems nothing less than a dream when we talk about a fan of Manchester United, Mumbai Indians, and the Indian cricket team, who founded a company named Dream11 for the love of sports that he nurtures. Yes, it happened with Harsh Jain, who with his founding partner, Bhavit Sheth, founded Dream11 and Dream Sports, India’s no. 1 sports fantasy platform for sporting enthusiasts. That allows users to play fantasy cricket, hockey, football, kabaddi, handball, basketball, volleyball, rugby,futsal, American football,and baseball.
Harsh was the son of Anand Jain, an Indian business magnate previously associated with Mukesh Ambani. He was born in Mumbai, India, and was an engineering student at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he went for an MBA from Columbia Business School. Harsh began his career with Microsoft from where he completed a 2 months Summer Internship from June 2006 to August of the same year after which he went to work in Jai Corp Limited as a Marketing Manager. His father, Anand Jain was then the Chairman of the company. Jain worked at Jai for 13 months, when in 2008 he decided to establish Dream11.
Harsh is currently serving as a Culture Enforcement Officer (CEO) & Co-Founder of Dream Sports (Dream11, FanCode, DreamX, and more) and one of the leading entrepreneurs of India. Harsh is a major inspiration for the budding entrepreneurs of the country for sure. In April 2019, Dream11 became the first Indian Fantasy sportcompany to become a unicorn.In November 2021 Dream11 was valued at $8 billion.In December 2022, Dream11 had 160 million active users in India.
Supam Maheshwari is better known as the CEO and Co-Founder of Firstcry, India’s online marketplace for baby products. Supam was a postgraduate student from IIM Ahmedabad and started Brainvisa, as his first company with Amitava Saha, back in March 2000. The Pune-based company witnessed a steady growth before it was acquired by the US-based group, Indecomm Global in 2007.
Supam served as the Co-founder and the CEO of Brainvisa till December 2009 in order to found another company. He founded FirstCry.com in August 2010 along with Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattur.
The idea of establishing an eCommerce company focused on baby care products was rooted deep in his personal experience as a first-time parent, who faced numerous challenges in sourcing the best product for his baby. Firstcry has grown to be a market leader when it comes to baby products online. The company currently boasts of over 380 stores across India.
His net worth could be estimated at 190 million USD.The baby products marketplace’s valuation stands at 1.9 billion USD after an equity funding round of 13 million USD with pi Ventures As of 2021.
FirstCry had increased its IPO size from around $700 Mn to $1 Bn, aiming at a valuation of around $6-7 BnIN Aug 2022
Richa Kar is the face of one of India’s largest online lingerie stores, Zivame. Richa was born in a conventional family in Jamshedpur. Kar was an engineering student, who completed her graduation from BITS Pilani and eventually went for a corporate job in Bangalore. Richa eventually left her job in order to pursue an MBA, after which she joined Spencers Retail and then SAP Retail.
Her exposure in the retail industry helped her develop knowledge and practical skills beneficial for the retail industry. While working with SAP, Richa was intrigued about Victoria’s Secret, America’s largest retail company for women’s lingerie, and the success it enjoys. Soon after, she realized that India hasn’t got any such websites empowering women to shop for their own lingerie online smoothly and fearlessly.
Though Richa had a considerable experience of around 8 years by then in the retail industry, her parents didn’t get the concept of selling lingerie and weren’t sure how they would speak of her daughter, who is involved in such a profession to others. Therefore, she gravely lacked any support from her family but with her strong will and zeal to found a startup, she ultimately managed to establish Zivame with Kapil Karekar in 2011. Zivame has now become an online leader in its segment, offering more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. Zivame products come at affordable prices with high quality.
The company that initially started with Rs 35 lakhs, which Richa borrowed from her friends, is currently one of the best women’s lingerie marketplace in India. Zivame has received $69 million in funding at a valuation of $98.6M and her net worth is Rs 749 crores, according to reports. The company currently holds about 26% of the market share of the women’s online lingerie market in India, which stood at Rs 430 crore in FY19.
Ashish Hemrajani is an Indian entrepreneur, popularly identified as the Co-founder and CEO of Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of India’s biggest online entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow. Ashish Hemrajani completed his MBA with Marketing as his specialization from Sydenham University in 1997.
As soon as he completed his MBA, he went to work with J. Water Thompson. However, after working in the client management segment of the firm for 2 years, Ashish left the company in order to start his new venture with Bigtree Entertainment and BookMyShow in 1999.
BookMyShow still stands as a leading online ticketing solution for Indians. Under the leadership of Ashish, the company further expanded to New Zealand, UAE, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. BookMyShow also had a feature to buy tickets of sports matches like IPL, ISL, etc. They now have employ over 400 people across offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore. Ashish Hemrajani Net worth is estimated at Rs.3000 Crore as of 2021.
Shiv Nadar is a founding member of HCL Technologies and a prominent Indian entrepreneur, billionaire industrialist, and the recipient of India’s 3rd highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan. Shiv Nadar is the 3rd richest person of India, as of September 2021 with a net worth of around US$29.3 billion. Nadar goes by the nickname “Magus” (meaning: wizard in Old Persian), which he received from his friends.
Nadar was educated in the St. Joseph Boys Higher Secondary School, Trichy, and received his pre-university degree from the American College, Madurai. He again pursued Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, and received his Bachelor’s in engineering.
Walchand Group’s Cooper Engineering Ltd., Pune, which he joined in 1967, marked the start of Nadar’s career. However, he soon left his job role and founded Microcomp, a company that focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. Soon after that, he founded HCL in 1976 in collaboration with several friends and colleagues and with an investment of Rs 187,000.
The company made revolutionary advancements in the Indian IT landscape and is still regarded as one of the best among the homegrown IT companies whereas Shiv Nadar stands tall and towering as one of the top entrepreneurs of India.
The founder and CEO of the cyber security company, TAC Security, Trishneet Arora, was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 Asia list and also in Under 40 List of India’s Brightest Business Minds 2019 by Fortune magazine, in 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year in Service Business-Security, 2021 Fortune India 40 Under 40 and 2022 he was Awarded as global leader of tomorrow.
Arora failed in the 8th standard but his relentless love for computers and coding drove him through the path of glory to become a professional ethical hacker and a renowned cybersecurity expert. Arora dropped out of school but continued with his studies along with fixing computers and cleaning up software.
Trishneet was only 19 when he founded his own company, TAC Security Solutions in 2013 and he has never looked back since then. The cybersecurity company, TAC Security offers protection to numerous corporations like Reliance Industries, CBI, Gujarat Police, and Punjab Police and others, against network vulnerabilities and data theft. Trishneet Arora’s net worth is $5 million as of now.
The founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, or Dhirubhai Ambani, as he is popularly known, was a successful entrepreneur and business tycoon, who took Reliance public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades heaped on during his lifetime and was also awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor after he died in the year 2002.
Dhirubhai was a student of the Bahadur Khanji school. After the completion of his studies, he left for the Port of Aden, Yemen, to work for A. Besse and Co., for which he was later involved in selling shell and Burmah oil products. However, he left Aden and came back to his motherland to start his own company. Initially starting with “Majin” in partnership with Champaklal Damani, Dhirubhai eventually set up Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1966, which was later rechristened as Reliance Industries in May 1973.
Also, it was Dhirubhai who launched the popular textile brand ‘Vimal’. Dhirubhai died when he was 69 and was worth around $2.9 bn upon his death.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the Executive Chairman and CEO of the largest steel-making company in the world, ArcelorMittal, and an Indian steel magnate based in the United Kingdom. Besides, Mittal also serves as the Chairman of Aperam, a stainless steel manufacturer, which spun out of ArcelorMittal. Mittal owns around 38% stakes in his company along with another 20% stakes in the EFL Championship football club, Queens Park Rangers.
Lakshmi Mittal has also been appointed as a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008. Mittal was recognized with titles, honors, and awards of various kinds from time to time including “the third-richest person in the world” as announced by Forbes in 2005. He was also announced as the “Business Person of 2006” by Sunday Times, “Person of the Year” by Financial Times, In 2008 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, and more.
Born in a Marwadi family, Lakshmi studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya in Calcutta and graduated from the University of Calcutta affiliated St Xavier’s College with a B.Com degree in the first class. Mittal first chose the business way by founding the steel factory PT Ispat Indo. He went to purchase numerous companies from abroad, like the Irish Steel plant, starting from the state-owned steelworks in Trinidad and Tobago, all of which were successful initiatives.
Mittal ultimately succeeded to come out triumphant in a hostile takeover bid of Arcelor and later renamed it to ArcelorMittal, which is currently responsible for bringing a lion’s share of revenues for Mittal. As of 2022, he was ranked as the 15th richest man in India by Forbes with a net-worth of US$17.8 billion.
Informally known as the Czar of the IT industry of India, Azim Premji is the face of Wipro. Premji is known as an entrepreneur, investor, engineer, business tycoon, and philanthropist who was responsible for cementing the position of Wipro as one of the most prestigious of the Indian multinational corporations through more than four decades of growth and diversification.
Azim Premji is the founding Chairman and a non-executive member of the board of the company and has been twice listed by Time Magazine among the 100 Most Influential people.
Premji went for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University but he had to come back to take charge of Wipro, which was then termed as Western Indian Vegetable Products. He expanded the business to a large scale and later on discovered the vacuum that IBM left on its expulsion from India. He filled the gap by developing the IT wing of Wipro.
Premji is one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs whose total wealth was estimated $9.3billion and $25 billion respectively as of feb 2023. Moreover, he is also recognized for his philanthropic nature. He makes most of his donations to the Azim Premji Foundation and had agreed to give away half his wealth by signing the Giving Pledge in 2013. In 2019, he dropped from the 2nd position in the Forbes India Rich list to 17th position after giving away a huge amount to charity.
He topped the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List for 2020
We all have heard about Dunzo but do you know who founded it? The 24/7 delivery app was founded in July 2014 by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri, and Mukund Jha. Kabeer Biswas is the CEO and Co-founder of Dunzo, who completed his B.E from the University of Mumbai and followed it with an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).
He started his career with Bharti Airtel, Videocon Telecommunications, and then went on to found Dunzo. Dunzo currently provides its delivery services in eight Indian cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
In August 2021, Dunzo launched a new service, Dunzo Daily, to deliver essentials and household items in 19 minutes. January 2022, Reliance Retail led a US$240 million funding round along with Dunzo’s existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital. Reliance Retail invested US$200 million for a 25.8% stake in Dunzo.
Ratan Tata is the former Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group and is still the head of the charitable trusts of the company. A scion of the Tata family, Ratan Tata was the son of Naval Tata and later adopted by Jamsetji Tata.
He is well-known as an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the few business tycoons who are synonymous with success. Tata was the recipient of two of the highest Indian civilian awards – Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
Ratan Tata was a student of the Cornell University of Architecture and completed his Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business school in 1975. Tata was the apparent successor of J.R.D Tata, who started with the shop floor of Tata Steel and was responsible for expanding the company on a massive scale.
Largely credited with the diversification and growth of Tata, Ratan Tata helped the company acquire numerous businesses and companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and more, and scaled the company to unimaginable heights. Ratan Tata is currently featured among the top entrepreneurs of India and an inspirational figure for all the budding entrepreneurs and other individuals.
Nithin Kamath is the Co-founder of the biggest stock-broking company in India, Zerodha, an inspirational entrepreneur, and is famous as one of the self-made billionaires of India. Nithin along with his brother, Nikhil Kamat has also been declared as the richest self-made billionaire in India under 40, according to IIFL Wealth and Hurun India’s 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List 2020 with a combined wealth of Rs 24,000 crores, as assessed in 2020. In year end march 2022 zerodha net profit was 2094.3 crore.
The company has valued itself at $3billion, based on the valuations of employee stock option. Nithin Kamath was a student of Bangalore Institute of Technology but he was never quite inclined to academics. Kamath got into the world of trading at the early age of 17 and eventually, his love for trading grew.
Nithin was successful in trading but also lost quite a lot of his money in the early 2000s. Kamath then returned to a fixed job at a call center, where he worked for 4 years before joining Reliance Money as a franchisee in proprietary trading and advisory services. He worked hard and saved his capital to establish his own company Zerodha in 2010 and emerge at the top of his game with Nikhil.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur distinguished for being the executive chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited. Furthermore, she was also recognized as the former chairperson of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Kiran was the recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal for her contributions to the fields of science and chemistry.
Financial Times listed her among the Top 50 women in the business list while Forbes listed her as the 68th most powerful woman in the world. Furthermore, Kiran was also named the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.
After completing her graduation from Bangalore University with a bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Kiran went to the fermentation science and brewing at Melbourne University and topped her class emerging as a master brewer in 1975. She struggled to join as a master brewer in India after serving Carlton and United Breweries because the breweries here believed that the job of a master brewer is a “man’s work.”
However, Kiran discovered huge opportunities abroad and joined Biocon Biochemicals Limited, and eventually started Biocon India. In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthrop. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She received Firodia Lifetime Achievement Award 2022 for her contributions to science and technology.
In January 2020 Kiran received the international award and became the fourth Indian citizen to be honored with Australia’s highest civilian award. In year 2023 they start
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw scholarship for the students who study in the fields of science, technology or mathematics at the Mount Helen Campus. By 2022 she has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
Back in 2010, paying gas, electricity, telephone bills, and recharging our mobiles, DTH, and more wasn’t as easy as it is now. Then, Freecharge was one of the companies that came into being, which greatly helped the Indian masses to empower their digital ways. Sandeep Tandon was one of the founders of this precursor of today’s digital payments app, Freecharge, which he founded in 2010 with Kunal Shah.
A technology investor and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of India, Sandeep Tandon was a student of Bombay Scottish, after which he pursued a Bachelor’s and then Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. Sandeep started his career with a Los Angeles startup where he worked as an application manager.
However, it wasn’t long before he left the company and initiated his own venture, Celetronix but that was again sold to Jabil Circuits.
Freecharge was the next company that he founded, which emerged as the fastest-growing mobile payments app in India. After a short but successful period, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal and then eventually acquired by Axis bank, which currently owns the company.
Being a successful entrepreneur with years of experience, Sandeep Tandon is currently serving as the Managing Director of Tandon Group, as an Angel investor, and a mentor to the young entrepreneurs.
As eccentric as its name, Bewakoof boasts of an incredibly successful run as a casual wear and accessories hotspot for the current generation and undoubtedly a major part of its success goes to its Founder Director, Prabhkiran Singh. He along with Siddharth Munot founded Bewakoof.com back in 2010, which has since been a raging success for its unique printed t-shirts, joggers, funky mobile covers, and other accessories.
Both being civil engineering graduates from IIT Bombay, Prabhkiran and Siddharth were well-known to each other. In fact, both of them started with their independent startups right after they completed studies but none of them truly worked before Bewakoof was launched, which disrupted the Indian markets, promoting the “silliness” when it comes to fashion.
The estimated annual revenue of Bewakoof in 2020 was INR 200 Crores. The net worth of Bewakoof is estimated at INR 100 Crores.
The Indian traditional consumer products market was all saturated and boring, hoping for an upcoming disruption, which Mamaearth brought with its honest, organic, and safe products. The initial idea emerged out of a real-life problem that Varun and Ghazal Alagh faced while raising their own baby.
All of us want to extend our utmost care and best quality products to a newborn and Varun and Ghazal Algh wanted the same for their baby. However, it was when they were expecting their baby that they found the reality about the Indian baby products, none of which met the safety standards required to be applied on a baby. They first started to import baby products from the US but that was neither feasible nor less of a burden to their finances.
This made the research, apply for proper certifications and resulted in the launch of Mamaearth after 4 years of hard work and R&D. Mamaearth is currently hailed as the first Asian brand with the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free and entirely herbal products. Furthermore, it boasts of having served over 1.5 million customers across 500+ cities of India. The parents turned entrepreneurs, Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh have achieved an envious success and are looking forward to a brighter way ahead as one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs.
The company has expanded into offline distribution through multi-brand retail outlets and exclusive stores, to both online and offline markets. Their next step is to expand the offline business to 100,000 outlets and 100 Indian cities. The company has estimated revenue of INR964 crore in FY22, a growth of 109% over the past year.
PhonePe is akin to digital payments in today’s India. This market leader of a UPI-based digital payments platform was founded by Sameer Nigam, along with his co-founders, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer in December 2015.
Sameer Nigam has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School. After completing his schooling at DPS Noida, Sameer went to study Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai and then completed a Masters of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, finally finishing his MBA in 2009.
Sameer served as the Director of Search Product Development at Shopzilla for a little over 6 years, after which he launched Mime360, an online social media distribution channel. Mime360 was eventually acquired by Flipkart, where he again served as a Senior Vice President, Engineering but he left the company after one and half years to start his own company, PhonePe.
PhonePe has since been a roaring success! PhonePe continues to be the top player in the Indian payments ecosystem and accounted for nearly 50 percent of all UPI transactions processed in December 2022, According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Conclusion
We hope this list of famous Indian entrepreneurs motivates you to act on that startup idea you have in your head. Who else do you think should be featured in this list? And what makes you go gaga over him or her?
Contact: shubham@startuptalky.com
FAQs
Who is the youngest entrepreneur in India?
Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran are the youngest entrepreneurs in India. They co-founded the company called ‘GoDimensions’ a development unit, in 2011 at their home at the age of 10.
Who is the world’s richest person?
The world’s richest person is none other than the founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, who boasts of a net worth of $223 billion, as of February 28, 2022.
Who is the richest Indian?
Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian with a wealth of $103 Billion, as of March 2022.
Is a CEO an owner?
The title of CEO is typically given to someone by the board of directors. Owner is a job title that is earned by sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, who have total ownership of the business. However, these job titles are not mutually exclusive — CEOs can be owners and owners can be CEOs.
Who are the leading Indian entrepreneurs now?
To name some of the most prominent Indian entrepreneurs, we must list:
