Tata Group is in talks with BigBasket for Stake Buy, Says Report
According to reports, Tata Group along with a couple of other private equity shareholders is in talks to invest money in an online grocery firm called BigBasket, which is headquartered in Bengaluru.
The Tata Group which owns Jaguar Land Rover and tea maker Tetley is India’s amalgamation that sells almost everything from cars to apparel (clothing) and steel. Moreover, the company is in search to buy Indian online retailers to strengthen up its presence in e-commerce, and therefore it has reached out to IndianMart InterMesh Ltd, a B2B ( business-to-business) marketplace for a capability stake purchase.
However, IndiaMart’s shares have surged 142% in Mumbai this year, giving it a market value of about $2 billion.
The TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) is trusted to be actively intricated in the super-app venture. It is part of the Tata’s larger plan to include retail, financial services, e-commerce, and entertainment in a single basket to make it appropriate for the customers so that it can compete with Amazon, Reliance Industries, and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
In a statement, Hari Menon, co-founder, and chief executive of BigBasket said, “We planned the fundraising before Covid-19. Based on that, we also raised $60 million in April, predominantly led by Alibaba. However, we are now relooking at the whole thing because we are generating money at the ‘contribution margin’ level and business is also growing faster than before”.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown, the company was implementing around 350,000 orders a day, as compared to 220,000 orders during pre- (covid-19). Even though it had lowered the number of items stock-keeping units to 18,000 to 20,000 owing to curbs in inter-state and intra-state transportation.
BigBasket.com was started in 2011 has become a so-called unicorn last year with a $1 billion valuation which delivers groceries in some of India’s biggest cities and towns.
