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Dunzo was an Indian
e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...
company that delivered fruits and vegetables, meat, pet supplies, food, and medicines in major cities. It also had a separate service to pick up and deliver packages within the same city. Dunzo provided its delivery services in eight Indian cities including
Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
,
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
,
Gurugram Gurgaon (), officially named Gurugram (), is a satellite city of Delhi and administrative headquarters of Gurgaon district, located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest o ...
,
Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...
,
Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...
,
Jaipur Jaipur (; , ) is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the List of cities and towns in Rajasthan, largest city of the north-western States and union territories of India, Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had ...
,
Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
and
Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...
. The company operated a bike taxi service in Gurgaon. Dunzo was headquartered in Bangalore and was founded in 2014 by Kabeer Biswas along with co-founders Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri and Mukund Jha. Services were shutdown in January 2025.


History

Dunzo was founded in July 2014 by Kabeer Biswas, an alumnus of the
NMIMS Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal's Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (abbreviated as SVKM's NMIMS) is a private deemed university located in Mumbai. It has 17 constituent schools that offer both undergraduate and postgraduate courses ...
,
University of Mumbai University of Mumbai is a public state university in Mumbai. It is one of the largest university systems in the world with over 549,000 students on its campuses and affiliated colleges. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. It was est ...
. Before Dunzo, Kabeer founded a company called Hoppr, which was acquired by
Hike Messenger Hike Messenger, aka Hike Sticker Chat, was a multifunctional Indian social media and social networking service offering instant messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP) services that was launched on December 11, 2012, by Kavin Bharti Mittal. Hike ...
in 2014. Dunzo started out as a small
WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...
group, and transformed into a hyperlocal, app-based service. Dunzo raised its first round of funding of US$650k in March 2016 from Blume Ventures, Aspada Ventures, accompanied by other investors including, Rajan Anandan, MD of
Google India Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
and Sandipan Chattopaday. In December 2017, Dunzo received million in a fresh round from Google, with existing investors, Blume Ventures and Aspada participating in the round. This was Google's first direct investment in a startup in India. In June 2019, Dunzo suffered a data breach which exposed the user data of approximately 3.5 million users including email addresses, names, phone numbers and IP addresses. On 29 August 2019, Dunzo raised ₹34.56
crore Crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes the quantity ten million (107) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. In many international contexts, the decimal quantity is formatted as 10,000,000, but when used in the context of the India ...
funding by issuing debentures as well as Series C1 preference shares to existing investor Alteria Capital. In May 2020, Dunzo partnered with FMCG major
PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...
to deliver its snacks brands such as
Lay's Lay's (, ) is a brand of potato chips with different flavors, as well as the name of the company that founded the chip brand in the United States. The brand is also referred to as Frito-Lay, as both Lay's and Fritos are brands sold by the ...
and
Kurkure Kurkure is a brand of spiced crunchy puffcorn snacks made up of rice, lentil and corn. It is owned by PepsiCo through its subsidiary Frito-Lay. It was first launched in India in 1999 and nine years later, the snack was launched in Pakistan in 2 ...
to customers' doorsteps in
Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
amid the lockdown due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in India The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of , according to Indian government ...
in keeping with Pepsico's ‘Direct-to-Customer' initiative. In the same month, it also partnered with digital payments app
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to provide grocery and medicine delivery, bike pool, pickup-and-drop, among other services. In 2021, following changes to
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...
's terms that banned the sale of tobacco and liquor, Dunzo launched a parallel app called ''Dunzo Mo'' which can be downloaded as an APK file on the website. Tobacco and ''
paan Betel nut chewing, also called betel quid chewing or areca nut chewing, is a practice in which areca nuts (also called "betel nuts") are chewed together with slaked lime and betel leaves for their stimulant and narcotic effects, the prima ...
'' items were also no longer available on Dunzo's main app for Android users, although they were available on the iOS version and on the website. In August 2021, Dunzo expanded into
quick commerce Q-commerce, also referred to as quick commerce, is a type of e-commerce where emphasis is on quick deliveries, typically in less than an hour. Q-commerce originally started with food delivery and it still represents the largest chunk of the busines ...
by launching a new service, Dunzo Daily, to deliver essentials and household items in 19 minutes. In January 2022,
Reliance Retail Reliance Retail is an Indian retail company and a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. Founded in 2006, it is the largest retailer in India in terms of revenue. Its retail outlets offer foods, groceries, apparel, footwear, toys, home improvement ...
led a US$240 million funding round along with Dunzo's existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital. Reliance Retail invested US$200 million for a 25.8% stake in Dunzo. It raised over US$450 million in the round. Dalvir Suri left Dunzo on 3 October 2023, along with Mukund Jha. Following financial difficulties and competition, the company downsized its operations and laid off many employees in 2023 and 2024. In January 2025, the app and website were shutdown following exit of Kabeer Biswas who joined
Flipkart Flipkart Inc. is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as con ...
. Reliance which is the largest shareholder in Dunzo is reported to have written off its $200 Mn investment in the company due to Dunzo's inability to scale.


See also

*
Delivery Hero Delivery Hero SE is a German multinational online food ordering and food delivery company based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 2011, the company operates in 70+ countries internationally in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin and South America, and th ...
*
DoorDash DoorDash, Inc. is an American company operating online food ordering and food delivery. It trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% market share, DoorDash is the largest food delivery platform in the United States. It also has a 60% market sha ...


References

{{Online food ordering Online companies of India Transport companies of India Indian companies established in 2014 Transport companies established in 2014 Internet properties established in 2014 Online food ordering IOS software Android (operating system) software