Chaldal raises $10m investment in Series C

Online grocery store Chaldal has recently raised $10 million in its Series C round.

The investment was led by Wise Co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Topia Chief Product Officer Sten Tamkivi, and Xploration Capital.

Mir Group of Companies also participated in the investment.

Chaldal was founded by Waseem Alim, Tejas Viswanath, and Zia Ashraf in 2013.

In the beginning, the online platform used to work by picking up purchases from local retailers and then delivering them to clients.

Chaldal claims to have made $40 million in revenue and fulfilled 2.5 million orders in the last year, representing a 120 per cent increase year over year.

At present, it sells over 8,500 different products and plans to increase to 30,000 SKUs by the end of the year.

The platform currently operates 27 warehouses in Dhaka, Chattogram, Narayanganj and Jashore. It works directly with wholesalers, farmers, and large companies and corporations such as Unilever.

The online grocery store, with this latest investment, plans to expand into 15 new cities and open 50 warehouses by the end of 2021.

The platform was one of the first grocery delivery startups in the world to adopt the “dark store” model, picking up orders from its warehouses rather than retail shops.

Chaldal plans to expand on-demand logistics service for small e-commerce enterprises named GoGo Bangla and the Chaldal Vegetable Network, which will facilitate direct link between farmers and retail shops, in addition to its grocery deliveries.

It also intends to open a drugstore that sells directly to consumers.