Dunzo’s Kabeer Biswas to head Flipkart Minutes

Dunzo's Kabeer Biswas is joining months after Google invested in Flipkart. Google is now a common investor in both, Dunzo and Flipkart

Kabeer Biswas, co-founder of Dunzo, will now lead quick commerce operations for Walmart-owned Flipkart as the head of Flipkart Minutes, sources said. The development comes days after Moneycontrol first reported about Biswas’ plans on January 5.

“Kabeer (Biswas) has accepted the offer and will join as the head of Flipkart Minutes next week,” one of the persons cited above told Moneycontrol. This will be Biswas’ second innings in the rapid delivery space after starting and scaling up Dunzo for over a decade.

The development comes just days after Moneycontrol also first reported that Biswas, the last standing co-founder, is quitting Dunzo, the company he founded in 2014, as the firm struggles to keep operations afloat in an increasingly competitive industry.

The decision to rope in Biswas also comes months after Google participated in Flipkart’s $950 million fundraise by pumping in $350 million into the company at a valuation of $36 billion, as reported by Moneycontrol in May.

That fund infusion meant Google was then a common investor in both, Dunzo and Flipkart. While the tech titan owns roughly 1 percent in Flipkart, it roughly has a 19 percent stake in Dunzo.

Biswas heading Flipkart Minutes will give the Walmart-owned company an edge over other quick commerce majors, such as Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Tata BigBasket and more, as he has cut his professional teeth in the sector for over a decade, even before rapid delivery emerged as a hot sector only a few months ago.

Biswas will work closely with Hemant Badri, senior vice president (SVP) at Flipkart. Moneycontrol was first to report that Badri was given additional charge as head of Flipkart's quick commerce foray back in April 2022.

Biswas has moved on from Dunzo at a time when the company has massively scaled down in size and is struggling to keep operations afloat.

The company had even engaged with Swiggy and BigBasket for a potential buy out but the talks did not materialise.

Dunzo started back in 2014 as a WhatsApp group but went on to raise over $400 million from the likes of Reliance, Google, Blume Ventures, Lightrock and several others. While it grew into a formidable hyperlocal player that competed with Swiggy Instamart, Tata BigBasket and Zomato-owned Blinkit, excessive cash burn and an intensifying competitive landscape took a toll on the company.