Secures Series A funding of USD 10 million from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital
New Delhi, April 15, 2015: PepperTap, one of India’s leading and fastest mobile-first hyperlocal grocery delivery services has received Series A funding of USD 10 million from SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital. The funding will be leveraged for building a highly-skilled team that is in sync with global standards and for expanding the reach of PepperTap to 10 more cities in the country by the end of the year.
Launched in November 2014, PepperTap offers a wide-range of groceries and daily-need products. Currently PepperTap offers more than 15,000 SKUs across categories including Staples, food & dairy products, household items, fresh fruits & vegetables etc. Consumers can place their orders through a mobile app and deliveries are made in a span of two hours, making it one of the fastest services of its kind. The app is presently available on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS platforms.
Navneet Singh, Co-founder, PepperTap commented, “Our sole focus is to build the best grocery and fresh product-buying experience for our customers. Through our unique business model, we are able to provide delight for our customers, increase sales for our partner stores; and create a concrete and sustainable business for our shareholders. Participation by quality funds like SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital in our Series A funding establishes the fact that we are endeavoring to create a niche place for ourselves in the market. This investment will help us iron out any chinks in our armor, and build on our strengths to take our business from a single-city operation to a pan-India scale.”
Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors said, “We agreed to invest in Peppertap even before the name was finalized, and before the first engineer was hired. We liked Navneet so much and had such great chemistry that we felt we could partner with him to solve a very tough problem in a very large market. So we agreed to launch a grocery delivery business with him. A few months later, Navneet and team have far surpassed our expectations. We are delighted to co-lead the Series A with SAIF Partners and work with them to help make PepperTap a leading mobile commerce company in India.”
Ravi Adusumalli, Managing Director, SAIF Partners said “Grocery in India is a huge market and grocery shopping on mobile is already seeing strong adoption. We believe that PepperTap’s hyperlocal marketplace approach is the most efficient way to cater to this market, and can scale very rapidly. We are very excited to partner with Navneet in making PepperTap a big success.”
Prior to this round of funding, PepperTap also secured an undisclosed seed funding from Sequoia Capital recently. This capital infusion enabled the company to establish its operations, invest in strategic hiring and product development. It also gave it the much-needed support in enhancing its brand visibility and creating greater customer engagement.
About PepperTap:
PepperTap is the fastest on-demand grocery delivery service in India that provides convenience, on-time and on-demand delivery to its patrons, along with superlative services and hand-picked products. The company is based out of Gurgaon, Haryana, and kick started its operations in November 2014. It aims to provide patrons with best-in-breed experience in the least possible time.
About Sequoia Capital:
Sequoia helps founders turn imaginative ideas into enduring companies. As the “Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs,” the Sequoia team has worked closely with legendary founders such as Steve Jobs of Apple, Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner of Cisco, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Max Levchin, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel of PayPal, David Filo and Jerry Yang of Yahoo! and Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube. Our partner entrepreneurs in India include Amit Jain and Anurag Jain of Cardekho, Jaspreet Singh of Druva, Neeraj Biyani and Neeraj Kakkar of Hector Beverages, VSS Mani of Just Dial, Vikas Jain, Sumeet Kumar and Rahul Sharma of Micromax, Dhiraj Rajaram of Mu Sigma, Loney Anthony of Prizm Payments, Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam of True Caller, Darshan Patel and Dipam Patel of Vini Cosmetics and Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah of Zomato. Sequoia is now helping the next generation of innovators build the lasting companies of tomorrow. To know more about the Sequoia team in India and the companies we have partnered with, please visit www.sequoiacap.com
About SAIF Partners:
SAIF Partners is a venture capital firm with over $4B under management. SAIF provides seed, early, and growth stage capital for emerging technology companies in India and China. SAIF began partnering with entrepreneurs in India in 2002 and has backed over 50 companies since then including MakeMyTrip, JustDial, PayTM, BookMyShow, and Urbanladder.