Grofers Cofounder Saurabh Kumar Quits, To Continue As Board Member

Saurabh Kumar, cofounder of grocery delivery startup Grofers has left the company almost 8 years after setting it up along with Albinder Dhindsa.

In a statement on June 18, Grofers CEO Dhindsa said that Kumar will no longer be involved in day-to-day responsibilities at Grofers, but would instead continue to be a board member

“So, while SK (Saurabh Kumar) will no longer be involved in day-to-day responsibilities at Grofers, he will continue to be a board member and a shareholder at the company. This is the end of an era for Grofers, and I know all of us will absolutely miss having him around every day. I wish him the absolute best with his new mission and will be cheering for him with love and pride,” Dhindsa said.

The two IIT grads, Kumar and Dhindsa founded Grofers back in 2013. Grofers offers products across categories such as grocery, fruits and vegetables. It currently operates in more than 27 cities.

The startup operated mostly under a marketplace model in its early years. By 2017, the company pivoted towards inventory-led play and scaled down its marketplace operations after careful planning. 

To date, Grofers has raised around $660Mn in financing from investors such as Softbank, Tiger Global, Sequoia, Trifecta Capital, Bennett Coleman and Co, and others.

Grofers closely competes with BigBasket which recently exited to Tata Group. Grofers’ total revenue in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 (FY20) stood at INR 176.79 Cr, with losses growing 42% to INR 637.49 Cr. For FY20, Grofers’ operational revenue stood at INR 165.27 Cr, while income from other sources, which includes interest on fixed deposits and current investments, stood at INR 11.51 Cr.

Grofers claims to have registered a 60% increase in its GMV in 2021, compared to pre-Covid-19 levels. During the lockdown and subsequent months, Grofers also claimed to have onboarded 5,000 local stores as supply partners. It also opened 23 new facilities last year to meet the increasing demand. In April last year, it was reported that Grofers would invest $50 Mn to strengthen its supply chain and private label category over the next two years. 

The company also has plans to go public by the end of 2021. The company, which had initially planned to go public in 2022, expects to turn profitable this financial year and use the SPAC route to go public in the US, according to media reports in July 2021. 

Apart from this, Grofers is also said to be in talks to raise a large sum of $300 Mn from food delivery platform Zomato.