Quick commerce player Zepto has raised $665 million in an investment round that has more than doubled the start-up’s valuation to $3.6 billion.

The investment round, which is the largest in 2024, comes ahead of its expected listing sometime next year. The mobilisation will help the firm take on rivals such as Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy’s Instamart and BigBasket under the Tata umbrella. All the companies are scaling up operations given the swift growth in the segment.

Zepto, which was founded in 2021, raised funds both from existing and new investors. These included New York-based private equity firm Avenir Growth Capital, venture firm Lightspeed, and Avra Capital (a new fund started by former Y Combinator growth fund head Anu Hariharan).

Existing investors that participated comprised Glade Brook, Nexus, and StepStone Group.

Co-founder Aadit Palicha (Kaivalya Vohra is the other founder) said the company’s gross merchandise value, or the value of total transactions through the platform, has multiplied year-on-year to a base of $1 billion, and over 75 per cent of its 341 dark stores (stores that are not open to the walk-in public and only serve online order fulfilment) are profitable at a core operating level.

Last year, Zepto raised $235 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

Palicha added that Zepto is close to becoming operating cash flow positive and would look to go public. “If we can maintain customer satisfaction and operational discipline, we aim to go public soon,” he noted.

The firm is looking to double the warehouses that are used to deliver groceries within 10 minutes in a radius of two kilometres to more than 700 by March 2025.

“We’ve gone from 0 to 1 billion-plus in sales, or GMV, in 29 months, that is faster than any other internet company before us ... Even on a base of over a billion dollars at this point, we are growing 100 per cent-plus years on year. And that for us is one of the big drivers of this fundraise,” Palicha, told PTI.