Blink Commerce Private Limited, d/b/a Blinkit and formerly Grofers, is an Indian instant delivery service. It was founded in December 2013 and is based out of

Gurgaon Gurgaon (pronunciation: �ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: �ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...

. Customers of the company use a mobile application to order groceries and essentials online. Blinkit's employees then secure the items from their warehouse and deliver the items to the consumer within 10 minutes. By November 2021, the company was delivering 1.25 lakhs order every day. Blinkit currently operates in more than 30 cities in India. As of 2021, the company has raised about million from investors including SoftBank, Tiger Global and

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...

. On 24 June 2022, Zomato announced its acquisition of Blinkit for US$568 million in an all-stock deal. The acquisition was completed on August 10, 2022.

History

Blinkit was founded in December 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar as Grofers. Having met each other while working for

Cambridge Systematics Cambridge Systematics, Inc. is an independent, employee-owned transportation consultancy firm with corporate headquarters located in Medford, Massachusetts. Cambridge Systematics provides strategic planning and management services, objective anal ...

during the late 2000s, they teamed up to enter the grocery delivery space. Their goal was to solve the problems (both on customer as well as merchant end) associated with the unorganized nature of the sector. The startup piloted in Delhi NCR before reaching other cities in India. After seven years of operations as an online grocery delivery service, Blinkit introduced express grocery delivery in India, by building

dark store The term dark store, dark shop, dark supermarket or dotcom centre refers to a retail outlet or distribution centre that exists exclusively for online shopping. A dark store is generally a large warehouse that can either be used to facilitate a "c ...

s across cities. In July 2021, the company reported delivering over 7000 groceries in 15 minutes in

. A month later, in August 2021, it introduced 10-minute delivery in the top-12 cities, after completing over 20,000 under-15-minute deliveries per day across 10 cities. On December 13, 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit in line with its vision to embrace quick-commerce. On 10 March 2022 Blinkit fired 1,600 employees or 5% if its total workforce in an effort to cut burn rate, following this Zomato granted a US$150 million loan to Blinkit, during the same time zomato held discussion with Blinkit regarding a acquisition through share swap deal. Zomato had acquired a 10% stake in company the year prior. Following numerous discussions on 24 June 2022, Zomato announced its acquisition of Blinkit for US$568 million in an all-stock deal. The acquisition was completed on August 10, 2022.

Services

Blinkit primarily delivers groceries, fresh fruits,vegetables, meat, stationery, bakery items, personal care, baby care and pet care products, snacks, flowers, etc.

Criticism

In August 2021, the company's 10-minute delivery service faced criticism with concerns raised over the safety of delivery partners. CEO Albinder Dhindsa, in a tweet, defended the mechanism behind express delivery and claimed that there had been zero accidents.

Funding rounds

Source:

References

External links