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Happy Monday! Amazon is advancing its entry into the red-hot instant delivery sector. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch. Also in the letter: ■ Figma founder interview ■ AI startup funding dips ■ Elchemy raises funds Amazon advances quick commerce delivery code named Tez Amazon India is expediting its plans to launch its quick commerce business in India.
Let’s dive right in: Need for speed: Amazon India is gearing up to launch its quick delivery service, code named Tez, by late December or early next year, aiming to tap into the thriving quick commerce market, sources told us. We first reported about Amazon’s plans to enter the quick commerce market on August 28. Tell me more: Amazon initially planned to launch its own ultra-fast delivery in the first quarter of 2025 but has since accelerated its rollout to capitalise on growing demand from consumers.
Amazon is the only major ecommerce player without a presence in quick commerce, so far. Work in progress: Tez, a working title for the proposed business, will mark Amazon’s first foray into the quick commerce business globally. It is hiring for the high-priority project in addition to having a core team of employees working on it.
Job description: Amazon’s India grocery and essentials business has also described the project as a ‘greenfield, grounds-up initiative’ for an upcoming and fast-growing ecommerce space in India,’ per a job post seen by us. “Quick commerce is where all the action is if you are a meaningful consumer internet platform. They are also following the same model as others—setting up dark stores, figuring stock-keeping units (SKUs) and putting in place logistics infrastructure,” a person in the know said.
Keeping tabs: While Amazon has been planning its entry, multiple players have moved into the booming sector. Amazon’s arch-rival in India, Flipkart launched its quick service, Minutes Tata-owned BigBasket is also in the fray, which has made a shift to the so-called quick model Tata Digital–which runs Tata Neu– has also rolled out its own quick commerce service, Neu Flash. Sector watch: Quick commerce is now expected to hit cumulative gross sales of about $5.
5-6 billion during the month led by the trio of leaders – Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart. Morgan Stanley, in a note earlier this month, estimated a bear and bull case for the quick commerce market at $25 billion and $55 billion, respectively, by 2030. Read our coverage of the quick commerce sector: We’re 100% compliant with FDI regulations; aim to be majority India-owned: Zepto’s Aadit Palicha Zepto scoops up $350 million more from family offices, HNIs to boost domestic shareholding Zepto ramping up café business; eyes Rs 1,000 ARR in next financial year Zomato shareholders approve Rs 8,500 crore QIP plan as quick commerce competition heats up Zomato leads food delivery with 58% market share in Q1, Blinkit tops quick commerce: Motilal Oswal Quick commerce taps identity verification companies to curb frauds amid ramp-up Booming quick commerce platforms spot a big surge in ad revenues Quick commerce platforms are riding the advertising wave , with industry players Blinkit and Zepto nearing Rs 1,000 crore in annual ad revenue, thanks to their expanding user bases and increasing brand interest.
Driving the news: Market leader Blinkit, which reported a nearly fourfold jump in ad revenue to more than Rs 400 crore for 2023-24, is on track to earn more than Rs 1,000 crore from ads in this financial year. Zepto, too, is achieving similar momentum, as advertising becomes a key driver of profitability for qcomm players. Swiggy, which went public earlier this month , has also highlighted advertising as a growing revenue contributor.
Tell me more: Industry insiders attribute this surge to the fast-expanding customer base of qcomm platforms and their ability to deliver rapid inventory offtake for brands. Blinkit’s monthly transacting customers nearly doubled to 8.9 million in the July-September quarter, compared to 4.
7 million a year ago. ET reported in January that advertising revenue accounts for 10-12% of the total revenue for online food and grocery delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy, and it has since increased to 15-20%. Quote, unquote: “The nature of quick commerce is also such that to achieve inventory offtake quickly, brands tend to spend on ads to stand out for their consumers,” a qcomm executive said.
Sector watch: The scale of ad revenue for quick commerce firms is being achieved faster than ecommerce marketplaces such as Flipkart and Amazon. It’s a myth that you can’t monetise India promise: Figma’s Dylan Field Figma chief executive Dylan Field told ET that the American cloud-based design platform aims to leverage India's vast talent pool of designers and product developers to better support its customers. Field told us on the sidelines of the Slush Technology Summit 2024 in Helsinki, Finland, that Figma has a substantial number of weekly active users from India.
India play: “There is a real revenue opportunity in India. It is a myth that you cannot monetise India,” said Field, adding that as Figma spends more time in India, it will be able to find areas to improve its services there. “Right now, the (India) market seems underserved and it is important for us to be there.
” Zomato, Swiggy, Cred and Groww are among Indian companies using the platform to scale their design process. AI plans: AI has opened up design to a broader audience, Field said, by automating fundamental tasks and making the process user-friendly. About Figma: Founded in 2012 by Field and Evan Wallace, Figma is used by designers, product teams and developers to create user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX), and is known for its cloud-based accessibility and real-time collaboration features, similar to Google Docs.
Adobe's $20 billion acquisition of Figma, announced in 2022 , was scrapped last year due to antitrust concerns raised by UK and EU regulators. Also Read: European AI companies grapple with rigid rules, funds Other Top Stories By Our Reporters Indian AI startups funding dips 10% to $125 million in July-Sept period: Artificial intelligence (AI) startup funding in India saw a 10% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) dip in the July-September period and a 50% fall year-on-year (YoY), data sourced by ET from market tracker Venture Intelligence showed. Funding stood at $125 million, with 31 deals.
Elchemy raises $5.6 million: Elchemy, a cross-border specialty chemicals distribution platform, said it has raised $5.6 million (about Rs 47 crore) in a funding round led by early-stage venture capital firm Prime Venture Partners.
Zomato shareholders approve Rs 8,500 crore QIP plan as quick commerce competition heats up: Shareholders of food and grocery delivery firm Zomato on Saturday cleared its plan to raise Rs 8,500 crore via a qualified institutional placement (QIP). Over 99.7% of the shareholders who voted were in favour of the resolution.
Economy and effects of Covid may delay India’s developer growth pace: GitHub CEO | GitHub chief executive officer Thomas Dohmke says the Microsoft-owned software developer platform has deferred its earlier forecast — that had said India’s software developer base will be surpassing the US by 2027 — by one year, citing various factors such as the economic environment and the US growth. Global Picks We Are Reading ■ Get in, loser—we’re chasing a Waymo into the future ( Wired ) ■ Meta loses ground to Bluesky as users abandon Elon Musk’s X ( FT ) ■ How OpenAI stress-tests its large language models ( MIT Technology Review ).
