BigBasket to invest Rs 50-cr in B2B food services biz

Online grocery store BigBasket today said it plans to invest Rs 50 crore over the next 12 months to scale up revenues coming from hotels and restaurants segment.
The company, which started supplying grocery to hotels, restaurants and caterers (HoReCa) segment from June last year, aims to clock a revenue run rate of Rs 500 crore from the segment by March 2018.
Revenue run rate is a term used in online retailing to indicate total value of merchandise sold over a time-frame to predict future performance.
"BigBasket is setting up dedicated distribution centres across eight cities to scale up the business and has plans to achieve Rs 500 crore exit rate by end of FY 2018," BigBasket co-founder and Head (New Initiatives) Abhinay Choudhari said in a statement.

At the end of March this year, BigBasket's annualised turnover from the HoReCa segment stood at Rs 100 crore.
"The company would be investing Rs 50 crore over next 12 months as it expands the business nationally," the statement said.

BigBasket counts hotels like Le Meridien, JW Marriott, Sheraton, and Westin, institutional caterers such as Sodexo, CSS, HMS Host and restaurant chains like VasudevAdiga's, Barbeque Nation, Punjabi by Nature, Nandhana, WOWMOMO! among its clients.
At present, BigBasket has four million registered customers and a presence in over 25 cities across India.
The company has raised funds from UAE-based Abraaj Group, International Finance Corporation and Bessemer Venture Partners.