In early April, reports reports Reuters Indian delivery firm Dunzo secures $75 mln funding, lays off 30% of staff - ET Read more of a $75 million infusion into delivery-services firm Dunzo led by its largest investors—oil-to-OTT conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL’s) retail arm Reliance Retail and tech giant Alphabet—were accompanied by a devastating addendum: about 30% of the Dunzo’s workforce, or over 300 employees, would be laid off.
Strangely, the announcement felt relieving, said a former Dunzo employee who worked in operations. “Since the first (job) cuts in December, we knew there would be another large round. It had made everyone extremely anxious and jittery over the next four months, and the workplace felt very toxic,” he added.
A year ago, this would have felt like being in an alternative universe. In January 2022, Dunzo was flying high on a $200 million funding funding Livemint Reliance Retail picks 25.8% stake in Dunzo for $200 million Read more from Reliance Retail in exchange for a 26% stake in the startup, to become its biggest backer. Dunzo was also set to advertise in the Indian Premier League (IPL)—an expensive affair—while expanding dark stores dark stores Dark Stores These are retail distribution centres or outlets that cater exclusively to online shopping. They are generally large warehouses that can either be used to facilitate a collect-and-click service whereby a client collects an item that they have ordered online or an order fulfilment platform for online sales into new geographies such as India’s capital, New Delhi, and the national capital region (NCR).
Alongside, Reliance had plans to integrate its own e-commerce service Jiomart with Dunzo Merchant Services (DMS), five former and current Dunzo employees confirmed to The Ken. DMS, also called Dunzo for Business (D4B), is Dunzo’s business-to-business (B2B) arm that provides last-mile delivery services to small enterprises such as local restaurants and direct-to-consumer (D2C) firms such as meat-delivery company Licious.
All former and current Dunzo executives who participated in this story declined to be named because they either did not want to jeopardise relations with their employer or were not authorised to speak with the media.
And while DMS was faring decently, contributing under 10% of Dunzo’s overall revenues in early 2022, the star of the show was its quick-commerce service, Dunzo Daily. It promised delivery of products from well over 200 dark stores and local supermarkets in under 20 minutes and generated 60–70% of Dunzo’s total topline.
