Who runs BigBasket and who owns it
BigBasket is an online grocery and quick-commerce company based in Bengaluru. Tata Digital, the consumer internet company of the Tata Group, has owned the majority since May 2021, and Tata Sons' FY2026 annual report puts its stake at 84.23 percent. Since 16 June 2026 the chief executive has been Amit Nanda, who joined from Amazon India, where he was director of selling partner services. He replaced co-founder Hari Menon, who had run the company since 2011 and retired from full-time work on 30 September 2026 while staying on the board.
A second attempt by dot-com veterans
BigBasket's founders were not first-time entrepreneurs. Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh and V.S. Ramesh were among the founders of Fabmart.com in 1999, one of India's first online stores, which sold books, toys and groceries before the dot-com crash. They carried on in physical retail with Fabmall, a grocery chain in south India that later became part of Aditya Birla Retail's More. In December 2011 the four, joined by Abhinay Choudhari, set up Supermarket Grocery Supplies in Bengaluru's Indiranagar with $10 million from Ascent Capital. Bloomberg noted in 2018 that the team was mostly over 50.
This time they chose to hold their own stock. BigBasket bought from brands and suppliers, kept goods in its own warehouses and delivered in scheduled slots, instead of passing orders to neighbourhood shops. It built private labels such as fresho for fresh produce and bb Royal and bb Popular for staples, which co-founder Vipul Parekh said made up more than a third of revenue by early 2023.
From India's largest e-grocer to Tata ownership
By mid-2016 BigBasket was operating in eight large cities and had become India's biggest online grocer. Alibaba led a $300 million round in February 2018 at a valuation of about $950 million, and a $150 million round led by Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, CDC Group and Alibaba took it past $1 billion in May 2019. In October 2018 it bought milk delivery startups RainCan and Morning Cart and a controlling stake in vending machine company Kwik24, launching the BBdaily subscription and BB Instant machines.
In May 2021 Tata Digital bought a 64.3 percent stake in a deal reported at about ₹9,500 crore, adding roughly $200 million of fresh capital and buying out Alibaba and Actis. A further $200 million round in December 2022 valued BigBasket at $3.2 billion, the last priced round it has raised.
The late switch to quick commerce
The bigger shift came from Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, which taught urban shoppers to expect groceries in 10 minutes. BigBasket launched BB Now in November 2021 but kept scheduled delivery alongside it, and in August 2024 moved the whole business to 10-to-30-minute delivery. Menon later wrote that he had been in denial about quick commerce. Its warehouses had been built on city outskirts for planned monthly shopping, not for dense networks of small stores near homes.
The switch has been expensive. The consumer arm, Innovative Retail Concepts, grew revenue 7.7 percent to ~$954 million (₹8,223 crore) in FY2026 while its loss rose 66 percent to ~$356 million (₹3,073 crore). With the B2B arm, Supermarket Grocery Supplies, the two companies reported ~$1.22 billion (₹10,521 crore) of revenue and ~$368 million (₹3,175 crore) of losses. BigBasket used ~$726 million (₹6,255.74 crore) of short-term funds that year to cover its cash deficit.
Where BigBasket stands against Blinkit and Zepto
Industry estimates cited by Mint in May 2026 gave Blinkit 46 percent of quick-commerce GMV, Swiggy Instamart 27 percent, Zepto 21 percent and BB Now about 7 percent. BigBasket ran more than 850 dark stores in June 2026, while Blinkit had 2,443 by that month and Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes were expanding. Parekh told Mint the company would surrender market share if that was the price of profit.
What comes next
Nanda's brief is profitability. In July 2026 BigBasket narrowed its focus to about 40 cities that already operate profitably, down from 76 markets. The rest of the plan is bigger baskets: larger dark stores with wider ranges, more non-grocery categories and a 10-minute food menu with Tata Starbucks and IHCL's Qmin, piloted in Bengaluru in June 2025. Tata Sons hired Citi and Moelis in 2025 to look for outside investors, but for now Tata Digital remains the company's funder.
