Kabeer Biswas, a Co-Founder of Dunzo, is Expected to Join Flipkart Minutes

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

Jan 7, 2025 — 2 min read

Kabeer Biswas of Dunzo to Join Flipkart Minutes

According to a media outlet, Kabeer Biswas, a cofounder of the hyperlocal delivery service Dunzo, is expected to become the chief of operations at Flipkart Minutes. Following the departure of numerous other cofounders, including Mukund Jha, Dalvir Suri, and Ankur Agarwal, in recent months, Dunzo has been going through a difficult time. Reliance Retail, Dunzo's biggest stakeholder, recently wiped off its $200 million stake in the business. Additionally, it was stated that due to its financial difficulties, Reliance Retail will not be purchasing Dunzo or investing more money in it.

Denzo Navigating Through Troubled Waters

Due to Dunzo's problems—such as a liquidity shortage and a retreat from fast commerce—Biswas began searching for possible purchase opportunities and reportedly valued Dunzo at about INR 300 Cr, or $25–30 million. Compared to the $770 million valuation of its most recent investment round, in which Reliance contributed funds, this represents a significant decrease. Over the past year and a half, these difficulties have caused employees' salaries to be delayed. In addition, the business has looked into possible buyout discussions with Tata's BigBasket and Swiggy, although the conversations most likely failed. Reliance Retail looked into the idea of purchasing Dunzo at a much lower price earlier this year. Notably, Biswas told staff members in July that major investors, such as Reliance Retail, had promised to contribute more money to the business. This funding, though, never materialised.

In 2014, Dunzo began as a WhatsApp group and has now raised nearly $400 million from investors including Reliance, Google, Blume Ventures, Lightrock, and additional companies. Even though it developed into a strong hyperlocal competitor that faced off against Swiggy Instamart, Tata BigBasket, and Blinkit, which is owned by Zomato, the company suffered from excessive capital burn and a more competitive environment.

With Biswas, Flipkart Miniutes Likely Gain an Edge

Having spent more than ten years in the industry, even before rapid delivery became a popular trend just a few months ago, Biswas's leadership of Flipkart Minutes is likely to give the Walmart-owned company an advantage over other major players in quick commerce, including Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Tata BigBasket, and others. Given that Flipkart Minutes launched just in August 2024—many months later than the others—and that it still has some catching up to do, this is particularly important.

Hemant Badri, Flipkart's senior vice president (SVP), is probably going to collaborate closely with Biswas. In April 2022, this development first appeared in the media that Badri had been given more responsibility as the leader of Flipkart's rapid commerce initiative. Badri is the head of supply chain for the e-commerce giant Flipkart, where he has worked for more than three years.