Zomato may acquire Grofers

As per news source, Zomato, the online food ordering and restaurant discovery company, may acquire grocery startup Grofers. Both the companies are in talks regarding it.

“The talks have been going on since last two months to either buy Grofers or only deepen the partnership around groceries,” said one source. With Zomato Market, the company had recently forayed into grocery deliveries and has been reportedly in talks with Grofers and BigBasket to sell groceries and delivery to customers in what is seen as a move to make the best out of the current Coronavirus pandemic that has hurt online food deliveries amid shrinking strength of delivery personnel and restaurants shutting down temporarily.

“The deal is currently at the exploratory stage and may not close as well. The amount involved is also not certain,” said another source.

Due to the global pandemic, most of the industries are observing shutdowns and near collapse, only few sectors such as groceries have seen a surge in demand as customers have rushed to stock up groceries until the situation improves. Grofers, BigBasket, Amazon Pantry, Flipkart’s Supermart etc. have seen a huge uptake in orders for groceries and other essential items amid lockdown.  

If the deal goes through, Zomato would become another fierce player in the grocery segment, which is currently led by these players, even as others such as Swiggy, Dunzo etc. have been engaged in the grocery play from quite some time.

“We have partnered with Grofers, along with various FMCG companies, local groceries stores and modern retail chains, to pilot our grocery delivery service. We are not aware of any other conversation with Grofers,” A Zomato Spokesperson told the news source.