Flipkart has hired Kabeer Biswas, co-founder of Indian delivery startup Dunzo, as the Walmart-owned e-commerce group expands its quick commerce business in the world’s most populous nation.
Biswas will lead Flipkart’s quick commerce business, called Flipkart Minutes, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch. The move follows Flipkart engaging with Biswas over a potential acquisition of embattled startup last year, TechCrunch first reported.
The talks fell due to complication in the ownership structure of Dunzo, which counts Reliance Retail as one of its largest backers. Reliance has all but written off Dunzo in the quarters since.
The quick-commerce model — delivering items to customers within 10 to 15 minutes — hasn’t worked in most parts of the world, but it’s increasingly finding success in India, where a range of retailers and internet firms, from food delivery giant Swiggy to online cosmetics platform Nykaa, are gearing up their supply chain ecosystems to accommodate for faster deliveries.
Zomato-owned BlinkIt, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Nexus-backed Zepto currently lead the quick commerce market in India, but that hasn’t deterred other big players from joining the race. Flipkart launched Minutes last year. Amazon began pilot of its quick commerce offering in the country last month.
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