Grofers, a Gurugram-based online grocery startup, raised $200 million in a Series F funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund on Wednesday. Grofers had raised its first tranche of around $60 million in fresh capital from SoftBank Vision Fund in March. The current round is the largest in India’s online grocery sector to date.
Softbank’s Vision Fund was set up in 2016 and is now the world’s largest technology investment fund that boasts of having stakes in companies like Uber, Grab, Didi Chuxing, WeWork globally. But do you know the key Indian companies, apart from Grofers, which are a part of the portfolio of this $100 billion fund? Read on to know:
Paytm: Paytm, India’s largest digital payments startup, raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group in 2017. SoftBank has a 19% stake in Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications. According to recent media reports, Paytm is now in the midst of raising another $1.5-2 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba’s Ant Financial.
Softbank, along with Alibaba, had also invested another $445 million in Paytm Mall, the e-commerce daughter business of Paytm, in April 2018. Regulatory filings reveal that SoftBank was the major investor in that round, with funding of around $400 million of the total while Alibaba fueled the rest.
Oyo: SoftBank Vision Fund invested a total of $800 million in OYO, South Asia’s largest hotel chain in September 2018, with participation from other existing investors in the company-- Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital. OYO Hotels had said it received a commitment of an additional $200 million as well.
In India, where OYO says it is close to reaching profitability, the company has an estimated 125,000 exclusive rooms under its management, with a presence in 230 cities. Between January and June, OYO hotels in India clocked 17 million booked room nights. Also, according to data shared by OYO, it is present in 171 cities across China, with over 87,000 rooms under management, in the 10 months since its foray into the country.
Firstcry: SoftBank Vision Fund committed investment of $400 million in Pune-based baby and mothercare product retailer FirstCry in January. Of this, around $150 million has already been infused into the company.
Started in 2010 by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha, FirstCry is reported to have 330-350 offline stores across the country at the end of 2018. The company claims to offer more than 200,000 baby and kids products across categories that include diapering, feeding and nursing, skin and health care, toys, clothes, footwear and fashion accessories among others.
Delhivery: SoftBank invested about $350 million in Gurugram-based ecommerce logistics startup Delhivery this year. Delhivery’s filings to corporate affairs ministry showed that SoftBank would own a stake of 23.41% in the company after the funding.
Delhivery, earlier known as SSN Logistics Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Suraj Saharan, Kapil Bharti and Bhavesh Manglani. It started off as a company providing local on-demand services and subsequently became a full-fledged logistics services provider.
Policybazaar: Insurance policy aggregator PolicyBazaar, along with online financial marketplace PaisaBazaar, secured $238 million in equity financing led by SoftBank in June 2018. The funding gave SoftBank an estimated 15% of ETechAces Marketing and Consulting, which owns and operates PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar.
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