SA国际传媒

, an India-based startup that delivers grocery staples, has raised $60 million from , upping its valuation to $425 million, 听

The Series F is reportedly 鈥渢he first tranche of a larger $120-$140 million funding round that the company is stitching together,鈥� according to the Times.

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Grofers has raised just over $300 million since its inception in 2013, according to its SA国际传媒 profile. Its last raise was a $56.4 million that gave the company a pre-money valuation of $238 million. Grofers also has backing from other big players like (read more about this secretive yet prolific firm here) and .

Grofers appears to be in growth mode, with about 3 million app downloads in its lifetime, according to its website. Its site also claims other (somewhat vague) stats: More than 1,000 people 鈥渉ave joined the Grofers team鈥� in the past six months. (Whether they have joined as employees or contractors is unclear – we鈥檝e reached out to Grofers and will update the story if they get back to us.) The company also says it has grown its user base by four times on a monthly basis, but doesn鈥檛 specify over what timeframe.

The fresh funding comes at a time when India鈥檚 food delivery space is heating up. , an India-based company that delivers food from restaurants, raised $1 billion in December听in a round led by South Africa-based .听Uber, which started delivering food in India in 2017, may even bow out of the competition and sell its service to Swiggy, according to Bloomberg.

Right now, Grofers operates in about 23 cities, according to its website. To compare other contenders in the food delivery sector: UberEats says it operates in more than 37 Indian cities; Swiggy is in 80 cities.

Globally, the delivery category is huge (although it鈥檚 important to note a recent failure in the space with venture-backed prepared meal delivery service provider abruptly shuttering last month.) Last October, our EIC Alex Wilhelm reported on San Francisco-based Instacart raising $600 million in a that took its valuation to $7.6 billion (the company ended up adding another $271 million to that round in November). , coming off of $100 million capital infusion in January from multiple investors, filed for an IPO in February.

While the funding infusion is noteworthy, the space does present its own challenges. Time will tell if Grofers鈥� strategy can pass the taste test. So far, investors are betting they will.

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