19-yr-olds’ startup Zepto raises $200 million, taking its valuation to around $900 million

Ten-minute delivery platform Zepto, founded by 19-year-olds Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, has raised $200 million, taking its valuation to around $900 million.

Childhood friends Palicha and Vohra dropped out of Stanford University to launch Zepto last year. Just nine months after launching, Zepto posted a record 800 per cent revenue growth in the last quarter.

"We maintained a phenomenal 88-point NPS (net promoter score) and 60 per cent 'month-1 buyer retention' at scale. This execution over the past few months has made it clear to investors that Zepto will be one of the winners in Indian Q-Commerce," said Aadit Palicha, Co-Founder and CEO.

The latest Series D funding round was led by Y Combinator with new investor Kaiser Permanente.


Key existing investors like Nexus Venture Partners, Glade Brook Capital, and Lachy Groom also increased their investments in the platform.

Zepto now plans to continue growing sustainably across India.

The company has a 1,000-strong workforce and plans to hire across all functions.


Zepto is also piloting a service to deliver coffee, chai and other items in 10 minutes across select areas in Mumbai.

Zepto has a 1000-strong workforce

"We've turned micro-markets profitable and brought down burn significantly while growing to a scale of hundreds of thousands of orders per day," said Kaivalya Vohra, Co-founder and CTO.


The platform has so far raised $360 million from investors in Silicon Valley and India.

In December, it had raised $100 million led by Y Combinator, taking its valuation to $570 million.

"Investors are consistently choosing to back Zepto because of our best-in-class execution. This is giving us incredible momentum - we're growing at a phenomenal rate, customers are loving the product experience, our core unit economics are strong, and we have one of the best startup teams in India today," Palicha had said at that time.


The Series C fundraising round saw participation from new and existing investors, including Glade Brook, Nexus, Breyer Capital, Lachy Groom, Global Founders Capital, Contrary Capital, and more.

The round came 45 days after the company announced its $60 million fundraise in November.

Delivering groceries in 10 minutes is a game-changing experience for customers in the country, and several players are now joining the race.

"Q-Commerce in India is an opportunity of epic proportions and strong unit economics. Today, we're consistently growing 200 per cent every single month with an unstoppable team, robust product infrastructure, and deep access to institutional capital," Palicha had said earlier. - IANS with inputs from TWL Bureau