Tata Sons questions BigBasket's slow growth amid quick commerce boom, tells firm to raise $1 billion: Report

BigBasket

Tata Sons has shown displeasure over the sluggish growth of BigBasket amid the boom in the quick commerce industry, and has called it a strategic misstep that has led to the firm falling behind rivals Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, The Economic Times reported citing sources.

BigBasket is owned by Tata Digital which is a subsidiary firm of N Chandrasekaran-led Tata Sons. The company has indicated that the e-grocery firm should seek external investors to raise as much as $1 billion in a funding round to stage a comeback. Bankers have held meetings recently to plan the proposed funding round, the report added.

Moneycontrol couldn't independently verify the report.

Notably, Tata Sons is not eager to lead the proposed funding round, and has pushed for onboarding another financial investor, one of the sources told the publication.

"Given how things have evolved, the idea is to onboard a large financial investor independently in BigBasket, and not at Tata Neu level. Then, Tatas and other existing investors would put in the rest of the capital," a person aware of the matter said, as quoted by The Economic Times.

"Essentially, this (funding) could lead to an IPO independently for BigBasket," another person said.

While quick commerce firms continue to snatch away market share despite recording cash burns, BigBasket has trailed behind.

Citi's latest report said Zomato-owned Blinkit and Zepto have cornered a higher market share in India's highly competitive rapid delivery market, followed by Swiggy Instamart.

"In quick commerce, Swiggy may be in the third spot in terms of market share behind Blinkit and Zepto…We estimate Swiggy’s market share at 23 percent, and Blinkit’s market share at 41 percent," Citi said.

Notably, BigBasket CEO and co-founder Hari Menon last year had said that the Tata-owned grocery delivery platform is planning to roll out its own quick food delivery service in 2025 to compete with Swiggy’s Bolt, Zepto Café and Blinkit's Bistro.

"2025 is ambitious (as it should be). (BigBasket will be) expanding to over 30,000 items to all Tier 1 cities, launching pharma deliveries with Tata 1mg, (and) rolling out food delivery of your favourite foods," Menon had said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).