STIC bets on India’s delivery market
Dunzo, founded in 2014, operates a hyperlocal on-demand delivery platform. Its early investors include Google, which invested $12 million.
“We decided to invest in Dunzo considering India is growing really fast and it lacks the delivery infrastructure using motorcycles,” a STIC official said. “India already has unicorns in food delivery and e-commerce but Dunzo offers competitive advantages with various services including delivery of food ingredients and errand services with motorcycles.”
Duzon reached 2 million orders per month recently and provides an average delivery time of 25 minutes with an average cost of less than $1, according to the STIC official.
The company currently operates in eight major Indian cities, and plans to use the proceedings to expand its delivery network and increase capacity to handle more orders.
The latest investment expands STIC’s overseas investment portfolio that focuses on China and Southeast Asian countries.
STIC Investment has invested in Viet Uc Seafood JSC, Vietnam’s largest shrimp post larvae producer, Cammsys Vina, a Vietnamese subsidiary of camera module producer Cammsys and Joyvio Group, a Chinese food service company.
STIC Ventures, which was spun off from the parent company in July 2018, has invested in i-Serve, a Malaysian kiosk solution provider, and B2C e-commerce platform TiKi in Vietnam.
STIC plans to continue investing in India, a country with a population of 1.33 billion. he country has created 19 unicorn startups so far.
A unicorn startup refers to a company whose value is over $1 billion.
“In addition to the Dunzo investment, we’re seeking other opportunities in the country,” said the official. “India provides a good investment environment backed by good data management compared with Southeast Asian markets.”
By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)