Alibaba, the China based ecommerce major, is all set to enter India’s foodtech industry with a $ 300 million investment in hyperlocal delivery service provider BigBasket. The retail and technology conglomerate is poised to buy over a third of the company, according to sources close to the development.
Reports also suggest Alibaba, along with India’s biggest online payments platform, Paytm, will acquire around 35% to 40% stake in the Bengaluru based startup. Both the companies have been in discussion for a potential deal for the past six months, which will value the eretail company at $ 850 million.
As per the deal, Alibaba will primarily invest $ 220 million and will also buy shares from existing investors for an additional $ 80 million in a secondary transaction. Existing major investors such as K. Ganesh and Meena Ganesh’s GrowthStory and investment firms Ascent Capital, Zodius Capital and Helion Venture Partners may exit the company post this deal. A news daily reported BigBasket’s co founders Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Chaudhary and V. S. Sudhakar may also sell a portion of their holding in the company.
Alibaba and Paytm have been eyeing India’s grocery market for a while now. For this purpose, Paytm also started conducting due diligence on BigBasket accounts and operations in July this year. Reports suggested Alibaba was seeking the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) approval to acquire BigBasket. According to a CCI statement, the Chinese company was given the green light to invest and acquire BigBasket. “The proposed combination relates to the acquisition and purchase of shares of Supermarket Grocery Supplies (SGS – the entity that runs BigBasket) by Alibaba Singapore,” the notice added.
Currently, BigBasket operates in 13 cities across India, including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Chennai. Along with Alibaba, Amazon has also been aggressively investing in the online grocery industry. Homegrown ecommerce giant Flipkart also recently relaunched its grocery delivery service Supermart in Bengaluru last month.