BigBasket raises $50 million debt capital from Alibaba

Bengaluru-based Supermarket Grocery Supplies,  which owns the online grocery platform BigBasket, has raised $49.4 million in a debt round from existing investor Alibaba Group Holding.

BigBasket has issued 4,62,500 Series F-2 compulsorily convertible debentures at Rs 8,213.5 per debenture, according to regulatory filings.

The new debt funding comes a week after BigBasket raised $60 million as a part of a new bridge round from Alibaba, South Korea’s Mirae Asset and UK-development finance institution CDC Group.

BigBasket recently acquired hyperlocal delivery startup DailyNinja to grow its micro-delivery business bbdaily and consolidate its presence in the subscription delivery market.

With this deal, BigBasket has access to DailyNinja’s 110,000 daily transacting customers, along with a network of 2,000 milkman partners spread across India.

In July 2019, Bigbasket raised about $14.6 million in venture debt from Trifecta Capital to meet the working capital and capex requirements of the company.

A little over two months prior to the Trifecta funding round, it raised $150 million in a round led by South Korean firm Mirae Asset. The UK government's development finance institution CDC Group and existing investor Alibaba Group also participated in that round.

The company has also ramped up its hiring process and aims to onboard 10,000 permanent staff across its warehouses and distribution centres. The hiring is planned across all 26 cities that the company is present in to deal with the surge in demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic.