On-request basic food item conveyance fragment has turned hot in India and worldwide investors are displaying a solid craving to back this model that has seen a resurgence. Also, Zepto’s new round is a demonstration of that. The half year old startup is in talks to raise $100-125 million at a valuation of around $550 million, according to two individuals acquainted with the matter.

“Zepto has been witnessing outstanding interest from a few development stage investors based out of the US,” said one of the sources requesting secrecy. “These investors including new and existing ones are in late-stage talks to place in $100-125 million in Zepto.”

This comes simply seven days after Zepto reported its $60 million lady round drove by Knoll Stream Capital Nexus, Y Combinator, Worldwide Organizers Capital and a few top-level holy messengers.

The prominence of Zepto has come at when the on-request staple conveyance play is gaining force. Zomato-supported Grofers turned to a 10 minute conveyance model and Dunzo followed after accordingly. Swiggy additionally scaled its on-request staple conveyance administration Instamart to six significant urban communities including the national capital area (NCR).

As of now, Zepto operates in a couple of spaces of Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurugram. “With the new fundraise, the organization needs to cover over twelve urban communities with its dull stores,” said another source who likewise wished not to be named as talks are private.

Questions shipped off Zepto’s fellow benefactor Aadait Plaicha over email and WhatsApp didn’t get any immediate reaction. We will update the story as and when he reacts.

Caveat: the conditions of the arrangement might change barely in time.

The new elation in the speedy conveyance space is reminiscent of the 2014-16 time frame when numerous startups sprung to crack on-request staple and basics, for example, new ranch produce (vegetables and organic products). Notwithstanding, the space saw bloodbath and surprisingly hyper-supported organizations like Peppertap needed to wind up operations due to helpless unit financial aspects.

All things considered, the 10 minutes conveyance model is by all accounts working great as Grofers’ turn attracted a $100 million investment from Zomato and it increased the interest of strategic investors in Dunzo.

Dunzo is apparently in conversations with Dependence for investment yet its talks with BigBasket, Swiggy and Zomato fizzled in the past over valuation and other obscure reasons.

In the interim, Swiggy is set to raise a new round at a $10 billion valuation.

The size of the 10-minute basic food item conveyance startups has gotten pace in the West in the post-pandemic period. A few organizations in Europe too had rounded up enormous rounds at grandiose valuations. Turkey-based Getir had raised more than $1.1 billion in 2021 while its German friend Gorila valuation took off to $6 billion. In the US, Instacart, a staple conveyance startup that gets things from the local stores and conveys to the customer, saw enormous development during the pandemic.