Mukesh Ambani backed cash-strapped firm unable to pay salaries, may be acquired by Rs 265243 crore…

Mukesh Ambani backed cash-strapped startup Dunzo has been in crisis for quite a long time now. The instant delivery platform supported by giants like Reliance Retail, Google and others has been unable to pay salaries of its former employees. Many of the top executives have already left the cash-strapped startup as it continues to make it to the news for all the wrong reasons. Mukesh Ambani backed startups usually turn out to be an industry leader, however that isn’t the case with Dunzo. As Dunzo’s problems are piling up, it appears that it may be acquired by the Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart. As per a report by TechCrunch, Flipkart is in talks to acquire Dunzo. One of the key things that is hindering the acquisition talks is believed to be complexities surrounding Dunzo's ownership structure.

Valued over Rs 265243 crore, Flipkart is also reportedly skeptical about the Dunzo deal due to involvement of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail. To recall, Mukesh Ambani’s firm bought around 25% stake in Dunzo by investing almost Rs 1641 crore. Although Dunzo has refuted the report and claimed to be on path to free cash flow break even in the month of March, it is worth noting that the company has previously held acquisition talks with various companies such as Tata and Zomato.

Dunzo has delayed their employee’s salaries multiple times over the past year. It has posted a loss of Rs 1,800 crore in FY23, a 288 per cent increase from the previous year. The company has also been hit by the departure of several top-level executives, including co-founders and its finance head. 

Founded by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri and Mukund Jha in 2014, the startup raised several rounds of funding and got interest from giants like Google and Lightbox.