Flipkart has hired Kabeer Biswas, co-founder of Indian delivery startup Dunzo, as the Walmart-owned e-commerce group expands its e-commerce business in the world's most populous country.
Biswas will head an e-commerce business called Flipkart. Flipkart minutesA person familiar with the situation told TechCrunch. The move follows the end of Biswas with Flipkart. Buying the potential of startups that struggled last yearFirst reported by TechCrunch.
The talks fell through due to complications in the ownership structure of Dunzo, which counts Reliance Retail as one of its biggest backers. Reliance wrote off all but Dunzo in quarters.
The express-commerce model of delivering products to customers in 10 to 15 minutes hasn't worked in most parts of the world, but it's growing in success in India, where a number of retailers and internet companies, including food delivery giant Swiggy, are using it. Nykaa, an online cosmetics platform. Improve their supply chain ecosystem. To accommodate for faster deliveries.
Zomato-owned BlinkIt; Swiggy-owned Instamart and Nexus-backed Zepto currently lead the e-commerce market in India, but that hasn't stopped other big players from entering the race. Flipkart launched Minutes last year. Amazon Launched its express commerce offering. Last month in Burma
Dunzo — founded in 2014 — was one of the earliest startups to explore the instant commerce model. Google Backed by the likes of Blume Ventures and Lightbox, it aims to bring the country's e-commerce sector to shoppers within half an hour. But as the competition intensified, the startup, which had raised more than $500 million, failed.
Biswas has explored other ventures in recent months, pitching various ideas to team members and VCs, including Peak XV.