Dunzo, backed by Reliance and Google, delays worker salaries once more

Dunzo knowledgeable its staff on Wednesday that it could 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 staff 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 attainable is our prime precedence. Please be assured that we’re doing the whole lot to make this occur, and we’re assured that there shall be no additional delays after this,” the corporate wrote in an e mail.

The startup had partially deferred making June payroll for some staff and delayed July and August salaries for all employees. Dunzo, which delivers grocery and different objects, has been delaying the salaries because it makes an attempt to streamline its money circulation and aggressively hunts for brand new funding.

The eight-year-old startup, which secured some funding just some months in the past, has raised almost $500 million altogether and was final valued at $757 million, in keeping with market intelligence agency Tracxn.

Dunzo has been trying to elevate 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 latest funding spherical, Indian information outlet Financial Occasions 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 boost new funds as enterprise traders develop into cautious about new backings amid the weakening economic system. It additionally doesn’t assist that Dunzo operates within the cash-guzzling class of prompt 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 big Swiggy, which operates within the area via Instamart, has additionally slowed the expansion of its prompt grocery supply enterprise in latest 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 latest quarters and is more and more prioritizing its business-to-business providing, the paper reported.