Reliance to acquire Milkbasket for over $40 million

Reliance is set to acquire the subscription-based milk delivery Gurugam-based startup Milkbasket for a $40-43 million deal.

Milkbasket was founded in 2015 by Anant Goel, Ashish Goel, Anurag Jain and Yatish Talvadia, and it caters to household grocery needs. Milkbasket, is operating mostly operates in parts of Delhi, Gurugam, Noida, Dwarka, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, has reported a revenue of Rs 322 crore in FY2020.

The company claims to have set up an advanced technology across the full-stack supply chain from sourcing to last-mile delivery. Aside from Reliance, Milkbasket was earlier in talks with BigBasket and Amazon for take over.

The talk among Reliance and Milk basket have been on for a while and have now reached the last stage of negotiations. Reliance has already offered a term sheet to Milk basket this month.

Reliance will hope to use Milkbasket's strength in subscription commerce platform for its own JioMart, which despite a big splash launch last year is still motoring along slowly. Sources said, last month Kalaari capital had sold its entire stake Milkbasket to Mahendran ahata-led MN Televentures.

The acquisition of Milkbasket can help JioMart and Reliance Retail provide the bulwark of an established player in the key markets of Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi and its vicinity. Milkbasket's Co-founder and CEO Anant Goel will join Reliance whereas the other Co-founders will move after the completion of the transaction.