After groceries, services and fashion, baby care is quick commerce's next frontier

baby care

Quick commerce, as an industry, continues to rise to the forefront of venture capital (VC) interest. An increasing number of investors are discussing deals and evaluating startups to ensure they have exposure to a space that is emerging as a dominant theme.

In just about four years, quick commerce has moved beyond groceries and expanded to fashion, then to services and pharmaceuticals.

Investors are now betting on baby care as the next frontier in quick commerce.

Stellaris Venture Partners is in advanced stages of investing $3-4 million in Cavi, a Bengaluru-based platform that delivers baby essentials in 30 minutes, sources told Moneycontrol.

Similarly, Blume Ventures is in talks to invest $4-5 million in Ozi, another baby care platform that is scaling on the guardrails of quick commerce, according to people aware of the developments.

While the funding rounds at Cavi and Ozi are in the final stages, a rival startup, Zoddle, which promises 60-minute deliveries for all that a kid needs, is in the early stages of its fundraising journey and is engaging with potential investors to raise money to capitalise on a growing trend.

Stellaris Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, Cavi, Ozi and Zoddle did not reply to Moneycontrol’s queries.

At least three vertical quick commerce companies are raising money thanks to the success that Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket, Flipkart Minutes and others have tasted.

Most investors who missed the bus on quick commerce during its early days, around 2021, are finding ways to have some exposure to the industry now.

“Anything quick is getting funded quickly,” a venture capital investor told Moneycontrol. “By the time the team reads the pitch deck, other VC firms would have already sent term sheets,” the investor said while highlighting the speed at which investors and companies are moving to close deals.

In the past months, Slikk, a quick fashion startup, has raised over $13 million across two rounds in three months. Similarly, Snabbit, a quick services provider, has raised over $24 million in two back-to-back rounds, which materialised in four months.

This is similar to what Zepto, the startup credited for making quick commerce a dominant theme in India, did last year. The company raised over $1.3 billion in consecutive rounds, all of which finalised in about six months.

Lightspeed and Nexus Venture Partners have been the most aggressive investors in the quick commerce space after picking up shares in Zepto, Snabbit and Slikk.

“A bunch of more qcomm deals will close, and it will largely be driven by the investors who have no exposure to the industry yet,” a venture capitalist said.

Indeed, if the Cavi deal and the talks with Ozi materialise, it will be among the first few bets that both Stellaris Venture Partners and Blume Ventures would have made in the quick commerce space in recent months.