Unicorn startup Zepto which is a Quick commerce D2C platform is in talks with another $400 million at a post-money valuation of $5 billion. Just before five days, the Mumbai based startup raised a massive amount worth $665 million at a post-money valuation of $3.6 billion.

The company was founded by Stanford dropouts Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha. Zepto has expanded and successfully operating in this competitive landscape of quick commerce market. The startup is delivering groceries, household items, and electronic accessories to urban Indian consumers within minutes. They claim to deliver products with 10 minutes.

The startup is currently using a network of "dark stores" which have small warehouses located close to high-demand areas. This is helping them the three-year-old startup to ensure swift and prompt delivery in any location around the metro cities of India.

Recently, the company has recruited over 50,000 delivery partners, adding about 5,000 new partners each month, and plans to expand its dark store network to 700 by March 2025.

Presently, the startup has around 350 dark stores in 10 cities, including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, and Pune.

On the other hand, its sole competitor, Blinkit is also aiming to expand its dark-store network to 1,000 by March 2025 from 526 as of March 2024, while Swiggy has 487 dark stores.

The report explains that, Zepto is targeting to reach $1.5 billion in annualized gross merchandise value (GMV) by next month and also aiming to generate $300 million in annualized gross profit. This target is quite higher than their annualized GMV worth $1.1 billion.

During the month of April, Goldman Sachs valued Blinkit at $13 billion out of Zomato’s $21 billion market capitalization. The report reveals that, Blinkit is the largest player in the space, followed by Swiggy Instamart and then comes the number of Zepto.