Dunzo knowledgeable its workers on Wednesday that it might not have the ability to meet the postponed deadline for his or her month-to-month wages as bother mounts on the hyperlocal supply startup that expended over $150 million within the final 18 months making an attempt, unsuccessfully, to emulate the mannequin of its youthful competitor, Zepto.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, backed by Google and Reliance Retail, knowledgeable its workers that their excellent salaries will now be disbursed within the first week of October as a substitute of the beforehand scheduled date of September 4.
“Making certain that you just obtain your due compensation as early as potential is our high precedence. Please be assured that we’re doing all the pieces to make this occur, and we’re assured that there will probably be no additional delays after this,” the corporate wrote in an e-mail.
The startup had partially deferred making June payroll for some workers and delayed July and August salaries for all employees. Dunzo, which delivers grocery and different gadgets, has been delaying the salaries because it makes an attempt to streamline its money move and aggressively hunts for brand new funding.
The eight-year-old startup, which secured some funding only a few months in the past, has raised practically $500 million altogether and was final valued at $757 million, in keeping with market intelligence agency Tracxn.
Dunzo has been seeking to increase a big funding spherical for a number of quarters. The corporate was eyeing as a lot as $150 million earlier and will solely safe about $45 million in a current funding spherical, Indian information outlet Financial Instances reported. TechCrunch reported in late March that Dunzo was finalizing a $50 million spherical.
Zepto, a rival to Dunzo, earlier this month introduced it had raised $200 million in a brand new funding spherical at a valuation of $1.4 billion.
Quite a few startups globally are struggling to lift new funds as enterprise traders turn into cautious about new backings amid the weakening financial system. It additionally doesn’t assist that Dunzo operates within the cash-guzzling class of immediate grocery supply that’s more and more seeing consolidation throughout the globe.
Zomato acquired the struggling 10-minute grocery ship startup Blinkit in a $568.1 million all-stock deal final 12 months. Meals supply large Swiggy, which operates within the house by way of Instamart, has additionally slowed the expansion of its immediate grocery supply enterprise in current quarters.
Dunzo, within the meantime, has shut greater than half of all its so-called darkish shops — warehouses dotting a metropolis the place companies retailer their inventories — in current quarters and is more and more prioritizing its business-to-business providing, the paper reported.
