The company, originally named Grofers, was founded in December 2013 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, who had first met each other while working for
Cambridge Systematics during the late 2000s. The startup piloted in
Delhi NCR before expanding to other cities in India. After seven years of operations as an
online grocery delivery service, Grofers introduced express grocery delivery in India in 2021, by building a
dark store network. In June 2021,
Zomato Limited (now Eternal) acquired a 9.3% stake in Grofers for $100 million. In July 2021, Grofers was reportedly delivering groceries in 15 minutes in
Gurgaon. A month later, in August 2021, it introduced 10-minute delivery in 12 large cities. By November 2021, the company was delivering 125,000 orders per day. On 13 December 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit in line with its vision to embrace
quick-commerce. By the end of 2021, the company had raised about million from investors including
SoftBank,
Tiger Global and
Sequoia Capital. In March 2022, the cash-strapped Blinkit fired 1,600 employees and ground staff, nearly 5% of its total workforce. Soon after, Zomato granted a US$150 million loan to Blinkit and entered talks to acquire it. On 24 June 2022, Zomato announced that it would acquire Blinkit for US$568 million in an all-stock deal. == Services ==