Deep Kalra, who is the chairman and group CEO of MakeMyTrip has invested 6.5 Million USD, along with a few others, in Dunzo, daily task management app. Dunzo has received this funding as a mix of debt and equity shares, according to a report it filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This funding was received in a staggered form from January to February of 2019.
In February alone, Dunzo raised a total of 4.5 Million USD from a range of investors like Deep Kalra, Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy (chairman of Hetero), and Raintree’s Family Office, along with a few other investors. In January, Dunzo received funding worth 1.7 Million USD from Alteria Capital.
Dunzo is on a fundraising spree. A few months ago, it received financial backing worth 6 Million USD from investors like Google, Blume Ventures and Alteria Capital. Earlier than that, the app received funding worth 12.3 Million USD in 2017 from Alphabet Inc in a series B funding. This marked Google’s first ever investment in a startup from India. However, it is important to note that Alphabet Inc, which is Google’s parent company, does invest in Indian companies through a company known as CapitalG.
Dunzo was founded in 2010 and is basically a chat based app that allows its users to create grocery lists or restaurant deliveries, which are then fulfilled. It uses a mix of AI and human operators to do this. So far, the app has seen 10 lakh downloads via android. In 2017-18, their operational revenues declined by a huge amount to 15.80 lakh from 98 lakh. However, the company’s losses have increased to 21.94 Crore INR from 10.75 Crore (for the period 2016-17). Their total expenses have also increased quite a bit as they have hired new employees. These expenses have gone up to 21 Crore INR from 11.79 Crore INR.
