South African on-demand grocery delivery startup Zulzi has raised ZAR30 million (US$1.6 million) in funding to grow its team and expand operations.
The Johannesburg-based Zulzi, which went live at the end of 2016, started life as an e-commerce business focused on students, but after strong initial demand has grown into an on-demand delivery platform that enables anyone to order groceries and get their order delivered within an hour.
When it was first featured on Disrupt Africa back in January 2018, the startup was planning expansion outside of Johannesburg, and Zulzi is now also active in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. Shoppers are able to order from retailers such Woolworths, Pick n Pay and Spar using its mobile app.
Now, the startup has raised ZAR30 million (US$1.6 million) in order to further expand. Already processing over 2,000 orders a day, Zulzi is looking to widen its offering in the near future. The funds will enable the startup to grow its technology, marketing, and operations teams.
“2020 has been a really big year for us,” chief executive officer (CEO) Donald Valoyi told Disrupt Africa.
“The reason why we are so excited is because the opportunity ahead of us is enormous. South Africa is a ZAR1 trillion grocery market and less than one per cent of that is bought online. It’s an enormous category that’s highly under-penetrated online. The reason why e-commerce is very small in South Africa is primarily because groceries were not online and Zulzi wants to fast track the growth of online grocery delivery.”
