MilkBasket, an online milk distribution company, seems to have found a home. For the past six-eight months, the Gurugram-based business that delivers groceries, milk, and other daily necessities has been searching for a buyer. The negotiations have entered the last stage and the contours of the agreement have been decided by both sides. A term sheet was already offered by Reliance earlier this month and the deal could be announced shortly. This is the second round of talks between the two firms. Reliance and MilkBasket are close to signing the contract, as opposed to the previous speech that did not bring out any results. The size of the deal is in the $40-43 million range.
The Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of MilkBasket, Anant Goel, will join Reliance, while the other Co-Founders will switch after the transaction has been completed. The acquisition would give investors practically no upside.
From Inflection Point Projects, Mayfield India, Unilever, Beenext, Blume Ventures, Kalaari, Lenovo Capital, and a host of angels, including several family offices, MilkBasket raised $33 million in total risk capital. The company has also been in negotiations with Amazon and BigBasket for acquisition in the past.
Established in 2015, MilkBasket was hailed as a local breakthrough due to its daily essential’s subscription model. Unlike other e-commerce sites, it has a sticky (household) user base that buys nearly every day. Experts assume that MilkBasket was a late entrant in the e-grocery space and that heavy-weight such as SoftBank, Tiger Global, Alibaba, and Mirae had taken their bets by then.
With this possible takeover, there will be an end to independent plays in the grocery subscription trade space. The Goel-led company is likely to be leveraged by Reliance to scale up its subscription commerce platform, which has been in pilot mode since last year.
