Reliance writes off its $200M investment in Dunzo

Reliance Retail, the consumer arm of Reliance Industries, has officially written down its Rs 1,645 crore investment in hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo, according to the conglomerate’s annual report.

This comes after Dunzo, once an early entrant in the hyperlocal delivery and logistics space, lost its edge in the cut throat quick commerce market.

Dunzo shut operations earlier this year in January after its app and website went offline as the last of its remaining co-founder & CEO, Kabeer Biswas, left the company. Biswas went onto join Flipkart to lead the ecommerce major’s quick commerce operations, Flipkart Minutes.

Reliance tossed its hat in the quick commerce foray with its investment in Dunzo back in January 2022. It led a $240 million funding round along with Lightbox, 3L Capital, Alteria Capital. The retail division owned about 26% stake in Dunzo. It counted Google with its 19.3% stake, and Lighbox with its 10% stake as other big investors.

Founded in 2014, the formerly up and coming startup went onto raise over $450 million. It initially operated as a hyperlocal convenience platform for users, later pivoting to delivering groceries and then turning into a full fleged quick commerce platform.

Trouble for the platform started after cash intensive quick commerce business ate away at its bottomline, leading to repeated layoffs, unpaid salaries, and scaled down operations.

Reliance has since then focused on leveraging its existing store network for its grocery foucused quick commerce service. The company is also actively building dark stores to for pincodes not being serviceable through its store network.