Blink Commerce Private Limited,

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

Blinkit and formerly Grofers, is an Indian quick-commerce company owned by

Eternal Limited Eternal Limited (formerly Zomato Limited) is an Indian multinational technology company. It is the parent company of Zomato, Blinkit, District and Hyperpure. History On 18 January 2010, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah incorporated DC Fo ...

. It was founded in December 2013 and is based in

Gurgaon 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 ...

. Customers of the company use a

mobile application A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

to order groceries and essentials online. Blinkit's employees then secure the items from their warehouse and deliver the items to the consumer within 10 minutes. By November 2021, the company was delivering 125,000 orders every day. Blinkit currently operates in more than 30 cities in India. By the end of 2021, the company had raised about million from investors including

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

Tiger Global Tiger Global Management, LLC (often referred to as Tiger Global and formerly known as Tiger Technology) is an American investment firm founded by Chase Coleman III, a former Tiger Management employee under Julian Robertson, in March 2001. It ma ...

and

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

. In 2022, Zomato Limited (now Eternal) acquired Blinkit for US$568 million in an all-stock deal.

History

Blinkit was founded in December 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar as Grofers. Having met each other while working for

Cambridge Systematics Cambridge Systematics, Inc. is an independent, employee-owned transportation consultancy firm with corporate headquarters located in Medford, Massachusetts. Cambridge Systematics provides strategic planning and management services, objective analy ...

during the late 2000s, they teamed up to enter the grocery delivery space. Their goal was to solve the problems (both on customer as well as merchant end) associated with the unorganized nature of the sector. The startup piloted in

Delhi NCR The National Capital Region (NCR; ) is a region centred upon the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi in India. It encompasses Delhi and several districts surrounding it from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The NCR and ...

before reaching other cities in India. After seven years of operations as an online grocery delivery service, Blinkit introduced express grocery delivery in India, by building

dark store A dark store (also dark shop, dark supermarket or dotcom centre) is a retail outlet or distribution centre that exists exclusively for online shopping. A dark store is generally a large warehouse that can be used either to facilitate a "click-a ...

s across cities. In July 2021, the company reported delivering over 7000 groceries in 15 minutes in

. A month later, in August 2021, it introduced 10-minute delivery in the top-12 cities, after completing over 20,000 under-15-minute deliveries per day across 10 cities. On 13 December 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit in line with its vision to embrace quick-commerce. In March 2022, Blinkit fired 1,600 employees and ground staff, nearly 5% of its total workforce, in an effort to cut the burn rate. Following this, Zomato Limited (now Eternal) granted a US$150 million loan to Blinkit. Zomato had acquired a 10% stake in the company the year prior. Following numerous discussions, on 24 June 2022, Zomato announced that it would acquire Blinkit for US$568 million in an all-stock deal. The acquisition was completed on 10 August 2022.

Services

Blinkit primarily delivers groceries, fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, stationery, bakery items, personal care, baby care and pet care products, snacks, flowers, Ambulance etc.

Criticism

Blinkit is involved in a legal dispute for the name Blinkit. Grofers India had applied for the trademark on December 24, 2021. In August 2021, the company's 10-minute delivery service faced criticism with concerns raised over the safety of delivery partners. CEO Albinder Dhindsa, in a tweet, defended the mechanism behind express delivery and claimed that there had been zero accidents. In April 2023, hundreds of Blinkit delivery partners in

, where about half of the company's dark stores were located, went on strike after a revision in payout structure resulted in lower earnings for them. This led to a temporary closure of many dark stores. In June 2024, the

FSSAI The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is a statutory body under the administration of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. It regulates the manufacture, storage, distribution, sale, and import of f ...

conducted a raid on a Blinkit warehouse in

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

, uncovering multiple

food safety Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, food processing, preparation, and food storage, storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a simi ...

violations, including unhygienic storage and handling, expired food products, and packets suspected of

infestation Infestation is the state of being invaded or overrun by pests or parasites. It can also refer to the actual organisms living on or within a host. Terminology In general, the term "infestation" refers to parasitic diseases caused by animals su ...

Funding rounds

Source:

References

External links