InnoVen Capital adds venture debt to Milkbasket’s Series B round

Micro-delivery startup Milkbasket on Wednesday said it has raised Rs 15 crore ($2.15 million at the current exchange rate) in venture debt from InnoVen Capital.

“The fresh investment positions us firmly for continued growth, and we will be investing substantially in geographical expansion, new technological advancements and hiring through the year,” Anant Goel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Milkbasket, said in a statement.

InnoVen Capital’s investment is part of Gurugram-based Milkbasket’s Series B round in which the startup recently raised $10.5 million from the likes of Unilever Ventures, Mayfield India, Kalaari Capital, and Blume Ventures and a few Indian family offices.

The latest development comes two weeks after Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s BAC Acquisitions decided to call off a proposed investment of Rs 20 crore ($2.86 million then) in Milkbasket. The two parties had said the decision was mutual.

TechCircle had reported on 29 April that BAC Acquisitions, founded in December 2018 by Bansal and his IIT-Delhi batchmate and former investment banker Ankit Agarwal, had offered debt funding to Milkbasket.

Operated by Aaidea Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Milkbasket was founded in 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia. Milkbasket says it fulfills the entire grocery needs of a household every day before 7am.

Unlike BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon and Flipkart -- the bigger players in the online grocery delivery market -- Milkbasket positions itself as the online version of local mom-and-pop grocery stores, only with more stock-keeping units. The firm currently operates in Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Bengaluru.

With a full-stack supply chain from sourcing to last-mile delivery, Milkbasket claims to serve over 100,000 households and fulfills all their household needs across fruits and vegetables, daily needs as well as other fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) categories. 

In December last year, it raised $7 million in an extended Series A round led by US-based early- to growth-stage venture capital firm Mayfield. This was preceded by a $7 million Series A investment led by early-stage investment firm Kalaari Capital in May last year.

In March this year, the company acquired Noida-based online grocery venture Veggie India for an undisclosed amount.