{"id":119782,"date":"2021-08-12T15:39:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T15:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=119782"},"modified":"2021-08-12T15:39:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T15:39:01","slug":"bigbasket-co-founder-abhinay-choudhari-plans-to-build-new-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/business\/bigbasket-co-founder-abhinay-choudhari-plans-to-build-new-business\/","title":{"rendered":"BigBasket co-founder Abhinay Choudhari plans to build new business"},"content":{"rendered":"
Now, Choudhari, along with few others, is entering into the online laundry segment, which was at its peak in 2014-16 but lost steam as companies could not scale their operations.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n BigBasket co-founder Abhinay Choudhari has exited the company, and in his next entrepreneurial journey, he is looking to “solve another equally painful chore for many Indian households” after grocery shopping.<\/p>\n The Tata group acquired a majority stake in the online grocery store in May.<\/p>\n And when the deal happened, Choudhari decided he won’t continue to be part of the management team.<\/p>\n “After nine years, the start-up itch has been growing within me, and I want to build one more new business from scratch,” he wrote to BigBasket employees in his parting email.<\/p>\n Choudhari had started a venture called ShopasUlike in 2009, which eventually morphed into Bigbasket in 2011 with the joining of co-founders Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V Ramesh, and V S Sudhakar.<\/p>\n Now, Choudhari, along with Raghavendra Joshi (CIO), Tripat Preet Singh (CFO), Uday Vijayan (CMO), S M Abbas (CPO), and P Singh (COO), is entering into the online laundry segment, which was at its peak in 2014-16 but lost steam as companies could not scale their operations.<\/p>\n As it happened in 2016, Choudhari invested in an asset-heavy small-scale laundry, which has been running as a low-burn pilot for the past five years.<\/p>\n “One of the reasons for several laundry start-ups to shut shop was that they focussed on an asset-light and app-based aggregator model, because they were primarily influenced by Uber and Airbnb.<\/p>\n “But the backend remained the same and fragmented,” Choudhari told Business Standard<\/em>, explaining the business model he intends to work on.<\/p>\n At present, the founders are busy setting up the first centre in Bengaluru with the latest machines.<\/p>\n This would be the biggest such laundry facility in the country with a capacity to process 45,000 garments per day, he said.<\/p>\n Though the initial set-up will be bootstrapped, the founders have already invested a total seed capital of $2 million and are in advanced stages of talks with investors to raise $25-30 million in Series A funding.<\/p>\n “Our model is asset-heavy, and we will be in control of the entire process end-to-end.<\/p>\n “If you cannot control your backend, your unit economics won’t work out.<\/p>\n “With the backend in our control, it allows us to bring the cost of processing and delivery operations to a level that can be disruptive,” he added.<\/p>\n Choudhari is building his laundry offering on affordability and a quick turnaround time of 24 hours.<\/p>\n According to a recent study done by Redseer, out of India’s total laundry market of $12 billion in 2019, $10 billion was B2C (business-to-consumer), and 80 per cent of this is expenditure for at-home washing.<\/p>\n The overall laundry market is expected to grow to $15 billion by 2025.<\/p>\n To tap this large market opportunity, the founders are creating a hub-and-spoke model of laundry services for each of the top 30 cities that they will go to.<\/p>\n Each city will have 15-20 hubs and these would be catered by two to four state-of-the-art service centres.<\/p>\n At their peak, the four centers in a city will employ 800-1,000 people, and each hub will have 100-125 people.<\/p>\n They will start from Bengaluru with a team of 300 people.<\/p>\n “We have an opportunity to disrupt the way Indian households do their laundry currently and become a market leader in a short period of time.<\/p>\n “The market is currently very fragmented and is largely unorganised and lacks a national player. From a recent consumer study across 30 cities, we gained insights that consumers are seeking out affordable, convenient and dependable services with a quick turnaround of 24 hours,” said Uday Vijayan, co-founder and CMO of the venture.<\/p>\n Photograph: Courtesy iimnofficial\/twitter.com<\/strong><\/p>\n