On-demand task manager Dunzo has reportedly raised a fresh round of funding to the tune of $3.1 million (Rs 22.49 crore) as part of its series C funding round, reports Inc42. The participants in this round of investment in Dunzo include Milestone Trusteeship Services, N Lakshmi Narayanan (former Cognizant CEI), Monika Garware Modi (from the Garware family of Mumbai), and the Raintree Family (based out of Maharashtra).
While the other 3 have shared approximately Rs 7 crore each of the full kitty, Monika Garware’s investment is around Rs 3 crores. These amounts have been invested in return for cumulative convertible preference shares (CCPS) issued in their favour.
Dunzo’s business model includes an app that can be downloaded to your mobile phones and a chat initiated from within the app to get a host of tasks completed. Shipping of packages, buying products, picking up and dropping off items, etc. are some of these tasks.
Dunzo was founded in Bengaluru in 2015 by Ankur Aggarwal, Dalvir Suri, Mukund Jha and Kabeer Biswas.
Active mostly in four cities, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Gurugram, the startup claims to have handled more than a million transactions. The per day average is 30,000. The company fashions itself as an “AI-driven chat-based hyperlocal services” company. This is mainly due to the deployment of artificial intelligence technology while meeting the requirements of its customers. Once the customer picks up a task to be accomplished the app will use technology to break down the task into simpler activities and come up with the solutions.
In terms of fund raising, the company has raised around Rs 80 crore in two tranches. These details have been obtained from the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) as part of the mandatory practices.
In December 2017, Dunzo also received a funding of $10-12 million from Google, which was Google’s first direct investment in an Indian startup.