At the Chindia TMT Dialogue Conference 2017 in Beijing last week, AllChinaTech interviewed some of the hottest startups in India. Here is the story of Milkbasket:
Founded in: 2015
Founder: Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia
Financing status: Pre-Series A financing of USD 500,000
What is microdelivery? According to Milkbasket co-founder and CEO Anant Goel, it means small deliveries on a daily basis. “No matter how small the item is, you can deliver it to the home,” said Goel in an interview with AllChinaTech at the Chindia TMT Dialogue Conference 2017. “Biscuits, groceries, whatever you need in the household.”
Milkbasket’s approach to home delivery is unique to India, and very different from other home delivery services. Milkbasket customers can order all day until midnight, and the packages will be sent to their homes the next morning before 7 a.m. “You can go to the office or meet your friends. There is no delivery model that frees up your day,” said Goel. For food or grocery deliveries, customers are required to be at home to receive the groceries – and most of them do not want to stay at home during the day. Also, with Milkbasket’s microdelivery model, the cost of delivery is less than RMB 0.50 (USD 0.14) per order, which is much less than the cost of RMB 10 to 20 for other delivery models, according to Goel.
More than 60 percent of Milkbasket’s customers came through word-of-mouth recommendations, and customer retention rate is at 97 percent month over month. Milkbasket is based in New Delhi, and only has operations in New Delhi. Goel does not see expansion to other Indian cities any time soon, as Milkbasket wants to capture the big New Delhi market.
Due to the current grocery delivery models in the market, the industry is so difficult to crack that a lot of investors do not want to invest in this industry. However, Goel disagrees. “This industry can be cracked. Investors should look into models like Milkbasket.”
In its pre-series A financing round in April 2016, Milkbasket raised USD 500,000 with investors, which included the China-India dual based venture firm Zhu Dao Investments, and Partner Beam Capital VC and YeahMobi CEO Peter Zou.
(Top photo from Pexels)
