Task management app Dunzo gets MakeMyTrip chairman’s backing

Dunzo Digital Pvt. Ltd, which runs daily task management app Dunzo, has raised $6.5 million (around Rs 46 crore) from a clutch of new and existing investors including Deep Kalra, the chairman and group chief executive officer of online travel services provider MakeMyTrip.

According to Dunzo’s latest filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company secured the funding through a mix of equity and debt in multiple tranches between January and February this year.

Dunzo raised the sum at a valuation of $50-$51 million (around Rs 357 crore), as per TechCircle estimates.

Earlier this month, the company raised Rs 34 crore ($4.78 million) from investors including Kalra, Hyderabad-based drugmaker Hetero’s chairman Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy and Pune-based Raintree Family Office, besides other individual investors.

In January, the company received Rs 12.10 crore ($1.7 million) from venture debt provider Alteria Capital, an existing backer.

An e-mail query sent to Dunzo seeking more information in this regard did not elicit a response till the time of publishing this report.

The latest infusion comes a couple of months after Dunzo had raised Rs 44.09 crore (around $6 million then) from existing investors Google, VC firm Blume Ventures and Alteria Capital.

Before that, Dunzo’s last major fundraising activity had taken place in December 2017, when it had raised $12.3 million (Rs 80.8 crore) in a Series B funding round led by Google.

The deal, which valued Dunzo at $30 million post-money, had marked Google’s first direct investment in an Indian startup. Google’s parent firm Alphabet Inc separately invests in Indian startups via CapitalG, its growth equity fund.

Founded in 2015 by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Aggarwal, Dalvir Suri and Mukund Jha, Dunzo is a chat-based task management app that allows users to create to-do lists. It fulfills tasks such as grocery and restaurant deliveries, instant local courier services and home services. The platform uses both artificial intelligence and human operators to offer its services.

The four-year-old startup offers its services through a mobile app, which is available on both Android and iOS platforms. 

The Dunzo app has been downloaded by more than 10 lakh users on Android, as per information on its Google Play store page. Dunzo is currently operational in Bengaluru, Pune, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai.

For the financial year 2017-18, Dunzo’s operational revenues declined significantly to Rs 15.80 lakh from Rs 98.5 lakh the previous fiscal according to data available with VCCEdge, the data and financial research platform of News Corp VCCircle. 

Expenses increased to Rs 21 crore, up from Rs 11.79 crore the previous year, primarily driven by a rise in employee and other expenses. Consequently, net losses widened to Rs 21.94 crore from Rs 10.75 crore in 2016-17.