Reliance Industries has officially written off its entire $200 Mn investment in Dunzo. The investment was made by Reliance Retail Ventures in early 2022, and gave it a 25.8% stake in the now-defunct quick commerce platform.
On January 13, 2025, the Dunzo app and website went offline after the exit of its last remaining co-founder and CEO, Kabeer Biswas, who has since joined Flipkart to lead its quick-commerce unit, Minutes.
Despite raising over $450 million, Dunzo faced severe financial trouble.
There have been repeated layoffs, unpaid salaries, and scaled-down operations. Its investors including Reliance Retail and Google also explored possible acquisition options, but talks fell through.
The company’s creditors also approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) over unpaid dues. Reliance’s full write off and Dunzo’s shutdown highlight the tough challenges in India’s quick commerce space including fierce competition from Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart, poor operations and falling investor trust.
Dunzo is among the largest write-offs in the Indian startup ecosystem, alongside Prosus’ $500 million write-off in Byju’s and $38 million in ZestMoney. Info Edge also wrote off its entire Rs 276 crore (approximately $33 million) investment in Rahul Yadav-led 4B Networks.
